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Extensible Prioritization Scheme for HTTP
draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-03

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
Authors Kazuho Oku , Lucas Pardue
Last updated 2019-11-04 (Latest revision 2019-07-23)
Replaced by draft-ietf-httpbis-priority, RFC 9218
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draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-03
HTTP                                                              K. Oku
Internet-Draft                                                    Fastly
Intended status: Standards Track                               L. Pardue
Expires: May 8, 2020                                          Cloudflare
                                                       November 05, 2019

               Extensible Prioritization Scheme for HTTP
                    draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-03

Abstract

   This document describes a scheme for prioritizing HTTP responses.
   This scheme expresses the priority of each HTTP response using
   absolute values, rather than as a relative relationship between a
   group of HTTP responses.

   This document defines the Priority header field for communicating the
   initial priority in an HTTP version-independent manner, as well as
   HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 frames for reprioritizing the responses.  These
   share a common format structure that is designed to provide future
   extensibility.

Status of This Memo

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

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

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

   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 8, 2020.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of

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   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
     1.1.  Notational Conventions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Motivation for Replacing HTTP/2 Priorities  . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Negotiating Priorities  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.1.  The SETTINGS_PRIORITIES SETTINGS Parameter  . . . . . . .   5
     3.2.  Defined Prioritization Scheme Values  . . . . . . . . . .   6
       3.2.1.  H2_TREE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       3.2.2.  URGENCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   4.  The Priority HTTP Header Field  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.1.  urgency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.1.1.  prerequisite  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       4.1.2.  default . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       4.1.3.  supplementary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       4.1.4.  background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     4.2.  progressive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   5.  Reprioritization  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.1.  HTTP/2 PRIORITY_UPDATE Frame  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     5.2.  HTTP/3 PRIORITY_UPDATE Frame  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   6.  Merging Client- and Server-Driven Parameters  . . . . . . . .  12
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     7.1.  Fairness and Coalescing Intermediaries  . . . . . . . . .  13
   8.  Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     8.1.  Why use an End-to-End Header Field? . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     8.2.  Why do Urgencies Have Meanings? . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     8.3.  Can an Intermediary Send its own Signal?  . . . . . . . .  15
   9.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     9.1.  HTTP Prioritization Scheme Registry . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   Appendix B.  Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
     B.1.  Since draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-02  . . . . . . . . .  19
     B.2.  Since draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-01  . . . . . . . . .  19
     B.3.  Since draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-00  . . . . . . . . .  19
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19

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1.  Introduction

   It is common for an HTTP ([RFC7230]) resource representation to have
   relationships to one or more other resources.  Clients will often
   discover these relationships while processing a retrieved
   representation, leading to further retrieval requests.  Meanwhile,
   the nature of the relationship determines whether the client is
   blocked from continuing to process locally available resources.  For
   example, visual rendering of an HTML document could be blocked by the
   retrieval of a CSS file that the document refers to.  In contrast,
   inline images do not block rendering and get drawn progressively as
   the chunks of the images arrive.

   To provide meaningful representation of a document at the earliest
   moment, it is important for an HTTP server to prioritize the HTTP
   responses, or the chunks of those HTTP responses, that it sends.

   HTTP/2 ([RFC7540]) provides such a prioritization scheme.  A client
   sends a series of PRIORITY frames to communicate to the server a
   "priority tree"; this represents the client's preferred ordering and
   weighted distribution of the bandwidth among the HTTP responses.
   However, the design and implementation of this scheme has been
   observed to have shortcomings, explained in Section 2.

   This document defines the Priority HTTP header field that can be used
   by both client and server to specify the precedence of HTTP responses
   in a standardized, extensible, protocol-version-independent, end-to-
   end format.  Along with the protocol-version-specific frame for
   reprioritization, this prioritization scheme acts as a substitute for
   the original prioritization scheme of HTTP/2.

1.1.  Notational Conventions

   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].

   The terms sh-token and sh-boolean are imported from
   [STRUCTURED-HEADERS].

   Example HTTP requests and responses use the HTTP/2-style formatting
   from [RFC7540].

   This document uses the variable-length integer encoding from
   [I-D.ietf-quic-transport].

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2.  Motivation for Replacing HTTP/2 Priorities

   An important feature of any implementation of a protocol that
   provides multiplexing is the ability to prioritize the sending of
   information.  This was an important realization in the design of
   HTTP/2.  Prioritization is a difficult problem, so it will always be
   suboptimal, particularly if one endpoint operates in ignorance of the
   needs of its peer.

   HTTP/2 introduced a complex prioritization signaling scheme that used
   a combination of dependencies and weights, formed into an unbalanced
   tree.  This scheme has suffered from poor deployment and
   interoperability.

   The rich flexibility of client-driven HTTP/2 prioritization tree
   building is rarely exercised; experience shows that clients either
   choose a single model optimized for a web use case (and don't vary
   it) or do nothing at all.  But every client builds their
   prioritization tree in a different way, which makes it difficult for
   servers to understand their intent and act or intervene accordingly.

   Many HTTP/2 server implementations do not include support for the
   priority scheme, some favoring instead bespoke server-driven schemes
   based on heuristics and other hints, like the content type of
   resources and the order in which requests arrive.  For example, a
   server, with knowledge of the document structure, might want to
   prioritize the delivery of images that are critical to user
   experience above other images, but below the CSS files.  Since client
   trees vary, it is impossible for the server to determine how such
   images should be prioritized against other responses.

   The HTTP/2 scheme allows intermediaries to coalesce multiple client
   trees into a single tree that is used for a single upstream HTTP/2
   connection.  However, most intermediaries do not support this.  The
   scheme does not define a method that can be used by a server to
   express the priority of a response.  Without such a method,
   intermediaries cannot coordinate client-driven and server-driven
   priorities.

   HTTP/2 describes denial-of-service considerations for
   implementations.  On 2019-08-13 Netflix issued an advisory notice
   about the discovery of several resource exhaustion vectors affecting
   multiple HTTP/2 implementations.  One attack, CVE-2019-9513 aka
   "Resource Loop", is based on manipulation of the priority tree.

   The HTTP/2 scheme depends on in-order delivery of signals, leading to
   challenges in porting the scheme to protocols that do not provide

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   global ordering.  For example, the scheme cannot be used in HTTP/3
   [I-D.ietf-quic-http] without changing the signal and its processing.

   Considering the problems with deployment and adaptability to HTTP/3,
   retaining the HTTP/2 priority scheme increases the complexity of the
   entire system without any evidence that the value it provides offsets
   that complexity.  In fact, multiple experiments from independent
   research have shown that simpler schemes can reach at least
   equivalent performance characteristics compared to the more complex
   HTTP/2 setups seen in practice, at least for the web use case.

   The problems and insights laid out above are motivation for the
   alternative and more straightforward prioritization scheme presented
   in this document.  In order to support deployment of new schemes, a
   general-purpose negotiation mechanism is specified in Section 3.

3.  Negotiating Priorities

   The document specifies a negotiation mechanism that allows each peer
   to communicate which, if any, priority schemes are supported, as well
   as the server's ranked preference.

   For both HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, either peer's SETTINGS may arrive first,
   so any negotiation must be unilateral and not rely upon receiving the
   peer's SETTINGS value.

   Servers are likely to only use one prioritization scheme at once per
   each connection, and may be unable to change the scheme once
   established, so the setting MUST be sent prior to the first request
   if it is ever sent.  In HTTP/3, SETTINGS might arrive after the first
   request even if they are sent first.  Therefore, future
   specifications that define alternative prioritization schemes for
   HTTP/3 SHOULD define how the server would act when it receives a
   stream-level priority signal prior to receiving the SETTINGS frame.

3.1.  The SETTINGS_PRIORITIES SETTINGS Parameter

   This document defines a new SETTINGS_PRIORITIES parameter (0x9) for
   HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, which allows both peers to indicate which
   prioritization schemes they support.  The value of this parameter is
   interpreted in two ways depending on if it is zero or non-zero.

   If the setting has a value of zero it indicates no support for
   priorities.  If either side sends the parameter with a value of zero,
   clients SHOULD NOT send hop-by-hop priority signals (e.g., HTTP/2
   PRIORITY frame) and servers SHOULD NOT make any assumptions based on
   the presence or lack thereof of such signals.

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   If the value is non-zero, then it is interpreted as an ordered
   preference list of prioritization schemes represented by 8-bit
   values.  The least significant 8 bits indicate the sender's most
   preferred priority scheme, the second least significant 8 bits
   indicate the sender's second choice, and so on.  This allows
   expressing support for 4 schemes in HTTP/2 and 7 in HTTP/3.

   A sender MUST comply with the following restrictions when
   constructing a preference list: duplicate 8-bit values (excluding the
   value 0) MUST NOT be used, and if any byte is 0 then all more
   significant bytes MUST also be 0.  An endpoint that receives a
   setting in violation of these requirements MUST treat it as a
   connection error of type PROTOCOL_ERROR for HTTP/2 [RFC7540], or of
   type H3_SETTINGS_ERROR for HTTP/3 [I-D.ietf-quic-http].

   In HTTP/2, the setting SHOULD appear in the first SETTINGS frame and
   peers MUST NOT process the setting if it is received multiple times
   in order to avoid changing the agreed upon prioritization scheme.

   If there is a prioritization scheme supported by both the client and
   server, then the server's preference order prevails and both peers
   SHOULD only use the agreed upon priority scheme for the remainder of
   the session.  The server chooses because it is in the best position
   to know what information from the client is of the most value.

   Once the negotiation is complete, endpoints MAY stop sending hop-by-
   hop prioritization signals that were not negotiated in order to
   conserve bandwidth.  However, endpoints SHOULD continue sending end-
   to-end signals (e.g., the Priority header field), as that might have
   meaningful effect to other nodes that handle the HTTP message.

3.2.  Defined Prioritization Scheme Values

   This document defines two prioritization scheme values for use with
   the SETTINGS_PRIORITIES setting.

3.2.1.  H2_TREE

   This document defines the priority scheme identifier H2_TREE (8-bit
   value of 1) that indicates support for HTTP/2-style priorities
   ([RFC7540], Section 5.3).

   The H2_TREE priority scheme identifier MUST NOT be be sent in an
   HTTP/3 settings because there is no defined mapping of this scheme.
   Endpoints MUST treat receipt of H2_TREE as a connection error of type
   H3_SETTINGS_ERROR.

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3.2.2.  URGENCY

   This document defines the priority scheme identifier URGENCY (8-bit
   value of 2) that indicates support for the extensible priority scheme
   defined in the present document.

   An intermediary connecting to a backend server SHOULD declare support
   for the extensible priority scheme when and only when all the
   requests that are to be sent on that backend connection originates
   from one client-side connection that has negotiated the use of the
   extensible priority scheme (see Section 7.1).

4.  The Priority HTTP Header Field

   The Priority HTTP header field can appear in requests and responses.
   A client uses it to specify the priority of the response.  A server
   uses it to inform the client that the priority was overwritten.  An
   intermediary can use the Priority information from client requests
   and server responses to correct or amend the precedence to suit it
   (see Section 6).

   The value of the Priority header field is a Structured Headers
   Dictionary ([STRUCTURED-HEADERS]).  Each dictionary member represents
   a parameter of the Priority header field.  This document defines the
   "urgency" and "progressive" parameters.  Values of these parameters
   MUST always be present.  When any of the defined parameters are
   omitted, or if the Priority header field is not used, their default
   values SHOULD be applied.

   Unknown parameters MUST be ignored.

4.1.  urgency

   The "urgency" parameter takes an integer between -1 and 6 as shown
   below:

            +-----------------+-------------------------------+
            |         Urgency | Definition                    |
            +-----------------+-------------------------------+
            |              -1 | prerequisite (Section 4.1.1)  |
            |               0 | default (Section 4.1.2)       |
            | between 1 and 5 | supplementary (Section 4.1.3) |
            |               6 | background (Section 4.1.4)    |
            +-----------------+-------------------------------+

                            Table 1: Urgencies

   The value is encoded as an sh-integer.  The default value is zero.

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   A server SHOULD transmit HTTP responses in the order of their urgency
   values.  The lower the value, the higher the precedence.

   The following example shows a request for a CSS file with the urgency
   set to "-1":

   :method = GET
   :scheme = https
   :authority = example.net
   :path = /style.css
   priority = urgency=-1

   The definition of the urgencies and their expected use-case are
   described below.  Endpoints SHOULD respect the definition of the
   values when assigning urgencies.

4.1.1.  prerequisite

   The prerequisite urgency (value -1) indicates that the response
   prevents other responses with an urgency of prerequisite or default
   from being used.

   For example, use of an external stylesheet can block a web browser
   from rendering the HTML.  In such case, the stylesheet is given the
   prerequisite urgency.

4.1.2.  default

   The default urgency (value 0) indicates a response that is to be used
   as it is delivered to the client, but one that does not block other
   responses from being used.

   For example, when a user using a web browser navigates to a new HTML
   document, the request for that HTML is given the default urgency.
   When that HTML document uses a custom font, the request for that
   custom font SHOULD also be given the default urgency.  This is
   because the availability of the custom font is likely a precondition
   for the user to use that portion of the HTML document, which is to be
   rendered by that font.

4.1.3.  supplementary

   The supplementary urgency indicates a response that is helpful to the
   client using a composition of responses, even though the response
   itself is not mandatory for using those responses.

   For example, inline images (i.e., images being fetched and displayed
   as part of the document) are visually important elements of an HTML

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   document.  As such, users will typically not be prevented from using
   the document, at least to some degree, before any or all of these
   images are loaded.  Display of those images are thus considered to be
   an improvement for visual clients rather than a prerequisite for all
   user agents.  Therefore, such images will be given the supplementary
   urgency.

   Values between 1 and 5 are used to represent this urgency, to provide
   flexibility to the endpoints for giving some responses more or less
   precedence than others that belong to the supplementary group.
   Section 6 explains how these values might be used.

   Clients SHOULD NOT use values 1 and 5.  Servers MAY use these values
   to prioritize a response above or below other supplementary
   responses.

   Clients MAY use values 2 to indicate that a request is given
   relatively high priority, or 4 to indicate relatively low priority,
   within the supplementary urgency group.

   For example, an image certain to be visible at the top of the page,
   might be assigned a value of 2 instead of 3, as it will have a high
   visual impact for the user.  Conversely, an asynchronously loaded
   JavaScript file might be assigned an urgency value of 4, as it is
   less likely to have a visual impact.

   When none of the considerations above is applicable, the value of 3
   SHOULD be used.

4.1.4.  background

   The background urgency (value 6) is used for responses of which the
   delivery can be postponed without having an impact on using other
   responses.

   As an example, the download of a large file in a web browser would be
   assigned the background urgency so it would not impact further page
   loads on the same connection.

4.2.  progressive

   The "progressive" parameter takes an sh-boolean as the value that
   indicates if a response can be processed progressively, i.e. provide
   some meaningful output as chunks of the response arrive.

   The default value of the "progressive" parameter is "0".

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   A server SHOULD distribute the bandwidth of a connection between
   progressive responses that share the same urgency.

   A server SHOULD transmit non-progressive responses one by one,
   preferably in the order the requests were generated.  Doing so
   maximizes the chance of the client making progress in using the
   composition of the HTTP responses at the earliest moment.

   The following example shows a request for a JPEG file with the
   urgency parameter set to "3" and the progressive parameter set to
   "1".

   :method = GET
   :scheme = https
   :authority = example.net
   :path = /image.jpg
   priority = urgency=3, progressive=?1

5.  Reprioritization

   Once a client sends a request, circumstances might change and mean
   that it is beneficial to change the priority of the response.  As an
   example, a web browser might issue a prefetch request for a
   JavaScript file with the urgency parameter of the Priority request
   header field set to "urgency=6" (background).  Then, when the user
   navigates to a page which references the new JavaScript file, while
   the prefetch is in progress, the browser would send a
   reprioritization frame with the priority field value set to
   "urgency=-1" (prerequisite).

   However, a client cannot reprioritize a response by using the
   Priority header field.  This is because an HTTP header field can only
   be sent as part of an HTTP message.  Therefore, to support
   reprioritization, it is necessary to define a HTTP-version-dependent
   mechanism for transmitting the priority parameters.

   This document specifies a new PRIORITY_UPDATE frame type for HTTP/2
   ([RFC7540]) and HTTP/3 ([I-D.ietf-quic-http]) that is specialized for
   reprioritization.  It carries updated priority parameters and
   references the target of the reprioritization based on a version-
   specific identifier; in HTTP/2 this is the Stream ID, in HTTP/3 this
   is either the Stream ID or Push ID.

   In HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 a request message sent on a stream transitions
   it into a state that prevents the client from sending additional
   frames on the stream.  Modifying this behavior requires a semantic
   change to the protocol, this is avoided by restricting the stream on
   which a PRIORITY_UPDATE frame can be sent.  In HTTP/2 the frame is on

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   stream zero and in HTTP/3 it is sent on the control stream
   ([I-D.ietf-quic-http], Section 6.2.1).

5.1.  HTTP/2 PRIORITY_UPDATE Frame

   The HTTP/2 PRIORITY_UPDATE frame (type=0xF) carries the stream ID of
   the response that is being reprioritized, and the updated priority in
   ASCII text, using the same representation as that of the Priority
   header field value.

   The Stream Identifier field ([RFC7540], Section 4.1) in the
   PRIORITY_UPDATE frame header MUST be zero (0x0).

     0                   1                   2                   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
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |R|                        Stream ID (31)                       |
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+
    |                   Priority Field Value (*)                  ...
    +---------------------------------------------------------------+

              Figure 1: HTTP/2 PRIORITY_UPDATE Frame Payload

   TODO: add more description of how to handle things like receiving
   PRIORITY_UPDATE on wrong stream, a PRIORITY_UPDATE with an invalid
   ID, etc.

5.2.  HTTP/3 PRIORITY_UPDATE Frame

   The HTTP/3 PRIORITY_UPDATE frame (type=0xF) carries the identifier of
   the element that is being reprioritized, and the updated priority in
   ASCII text, using the same representation as that of the Priority
   header field value.

   The PRIORITY_UPDATE frame MUST be sent on the control stream
   ([I-D.ietf-quic-http], Section 6.2.1).

     0                   1                   2                   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
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |T|    Empty    |   Prioritized Element ID (i)                ...
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |                   Priority Field Value (*)                  ...
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

              Figure 2: HTTP/3 PRIORITY_UPDATE Frame Payload

   The PRIORITY_UPDATE frame payload has the following fields:

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   T (Prioritized Element Type):  A one-bit field indicating the type of
      element being prioritized.  A value of 0 indicates a
      reprioritization for a Request Stream, so the Prioritized Element
      ID is interpreted as a Stream ID.  A value of 1 indicates a
      reprioritization for a Push stream, so the Prioritized Element ID
      is interpreted as a Push ID.

   Empty:  A seven-bit field that has no semantic value.

   TODO: add more description of how to handle things like receiving
   PRIORITY_UPDATE on wrong stream, a PRIORITY_UPDATE with an invalid
   ID, etc.

6.  Merging Client- and Server-Driven Parameters

   It is not always the case that the client has the best understanding
   of how the HTTP responses deserve to be prioritized.  For example,
   use of an HTML document might depend heavily on one of the inline
   images.  Existence of such dependencies is typically best known to
   the server.

   By using the "Priority" response header, a server can override the
   prioritization hints provided by the client.  When used, the
   parameters found in the response header field overrides those
   specified by the client.

   For example, when the client sends an HTTP request with

   :method = GET
   :scheme = https
   :authority = example.net
   :path = /menu.png
   priority = urgency=3, progressive=?1

   and the origin responds with

   :status = 200
   content-type = image/png
   priority = urgency=1

   the intermediary's understanding of the urgency is promoted from "3"
   to "1", because the server-provided value overrides the value
   provided by the client.  The progressiveness continues to be "1", the
   value specified by the client, as the server did not specify the
   "progressive" parameter.

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7.  Security Considerations

7.1.  Fairness and Coalescing Intermediaries

   When an intermediary coalesces HTTP requests coming from multiple
   clients into one HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 connection going to the backend
   server, requests that originate from one client might have higher
   precedence than those coming from others.

   It is sometimes beneficial for the server running behind an
   intermediary to obey to the value of the Priority header field.  As
   an example, a resource-constrained server might defer the
   transmission of software update files that would have the background
   urgency being associated.  However, in the worst case, the asymmetry
   between the precedence declared by multiple clients might cause
   responses going to one end client to be delayed totally after those
   going to another.

   In order to mitigate this fairness problem, when a server responds to
   a request that is known to have come through an intermediary, the
   server SHOULD prioritize the response as if it was assigned the
   priority of "urgency=0, progressive=?1" (i.e. round-robin) regardless
   of the value of the Priority header field being transmitted, unless
   the server has the knowledge that no intermediaries are coalescing
   requests from multiple clients.  That can be determined by the
   settings when the intermediaries support this specification (see
   Section 3.2.2), or else through configuration.

   A server can determine if a request came from an intermediary through
   configuration, or by consulting if that request contains one of the
   following header fields:

   o  CDN-Loop ([RFC8586])

   o  Forwarded, X-Forwarded-For ([RFC7239])

   o  Via ([RFC7230], Section 5.7.1)

   Responding to requests coming through an intermediary in a round-
   robin manner works well when the network bottleneck exists between
   the intermediary and the end client, as the intermediary would be
   buffering the responses and then be forwarding the chunks of those
   buffered responses based on the prioritization scheme it implements.
   A sophisticated server MAY use a weighted round-robin reflecting the
   urgencies expressed in the requests, so that less urgent responses
   would receive less bandwidth in case the bottleneck exists between
   the server and the intermediary.

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8.  Considerations

8.1.  Why use an End-to-End Header Field?

   Contrary to the prioritization scheme of HTTP/2 that uses a hop-by-
   hop frame, the Priority header field is defined as end-to-end.

   The rationale is that the Priority header field transmits how each
   response affects the client's processing of those responses, rather
   than how relatively urgent each response is to others.  The way a
   client processes a response is a property associated to that client
   generating that request.  Not that of an intermediary.  Therefore, it
   is an end-to-end property.  How these end-to-end properties carried
   by the Priority header field affect the prioritization between the
   responses that share a connection is a hop-by-hop issue.

   Having the Priority header field defined as end-to-end is important
   for caching intermediaries.  Such intermediaries can cache the value
   of the Priority header field along with the response, and utilize the
   value of the cached header field when serving the cached response,
   only because the header field is defined as end-to-end rather than
   hop-by-hop.

   It should also be noted that the use of a header field carrying a
   textual value makes the prioritization scheme extensible; see the
   discussion below.

8.2.  Why do Urgencies Have Meanings?

   One of the aims of this specification is to define a mechanism for
   merging client- and server-provided hints for prioritizing the
   responses.  For that to work, each urgency level needs to have a
   well-defined meaning.  As an example, a server can assign the highest
   precedence among the supplementary responses to an HTTP response
   carrying an icon, because the meaning of "urgency=1" is shared among
   the endpoints.

   This specification restricts itself to defining a minimum set of
   urgency levels in order to provide sufficient granularity for
   prioritizing responses for ordinary web browsing, at minimal
   complexity.

   However, that does not mean that the prioritization scheme would
   forever be stuck to the eight levels.  The design provides
   extensibility.  If deemed necessary, it would be possible to
   subdivide any of the eight urgency levels that are currently defined.
   Or, a graphical user-agent could send a "visible" parameter to
   indicate if the resource being requested is within the viewport.

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   A server can combine the hints provided in the Priority header field
   with other information in order to improve the prioritization of
   responses.  For example, a server that receives requests for a font
   [RFC8081] and images with the same urgency might give higher
   precedence to the font, so that a visual client can render textual
   information at an early moment.

8.3.  Can an Intermediary Send its own Signal?

   There might be a benefit in recommending a coalescing intermediary to
   embed its own prioritization hints into the HTTP request that it
   forwards to the backend server, as otherwise the Priority header
   field would not be as helpful to the backend (see Section 7.1).

   One way of achieving that, without dropping the original signal,
   would be to let the intermediary express its own signal using the
   Priority header field, at the same time transplanting the original
   value to a different header field.

   As an example, when a client sends an HTTP request carrying a
   priority of "urgency=-1" and the intermediary wants to instead
   associate "urgency=0; progressive=?1", the intermediary would send a
   HTTP request that contains to the following two header fields to the
   backend server:

   priority = urgency=0; progressive=?1
   original-priority = urgency=-1

9.  IANA Considerations

   This specification registers the following entry in the Permanent
   Message Header Field Names registry established by [RFC3864]:

   Header field name:  Priority

   Applicable protocol:  http

   Status:  standard

   Author/change controller:  IETF

   Specification document(s):  This document

   Related information:  n/a

   This specification registers the following entry in the HTTP/2
   Settings registry established by [RFC7540]:

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   Name:  SETTINGS_PRIORITIES

   Code:  0x9

   Initial value:  0

   Specification:  This document

   This specification registers the following entry in the HTTP/2
   Settings registry established by [I-D.ietf-quic-http]:

   Name:  SETTINGS_PRIORITIES

   Code:  0x9

   Initial value:  0

   Specification:  This document

   This specification registers the following entry in the HTTP/2 Frame
   Type registry established by [RFC7540]:

   Frame Type:  PRIORITY_UPDATE

   Code:  0xF

   Specification:  This document

   This specification registers the following entries in the HTTP/3
   Frame Type registry established by [I-D.ietf-quic-http]:

   Frame Type:  PRIORITY_UPDATE

   Code:  0xF

   Specification:  This document

9.1.  HTTP Prioritization Scheme Registry

   This document establishes a registry for HTTP prioritization scheme
   codes to be used in conjunction with the SETTINGS_PRIORITIES
   parameter.  The "HTTP Prioritization Scheme" registry manages an
   8-bit space.  The "HTTP Prioritization Scheme" registry operates
   under either of the "IETF Review" or "IESG Approval" policies
   [RFC5226] for values between 0x00 and 0xef, with values between 0xf0
   and 0xff being reserved for Experimental Use.

   New entries in this registry require the following information:

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   Prioritization Scheme:  A name or label for the prioritization
      scheme.

   Code:  The 8-bit code assigned to the prioritization scheme.

   Specification:  A reference to a specification that includes a
      description of the prioritization scheme.

   The entries in the following table are registered by this document.

             +-----------------------+------+---------------+
             | Prioritization Scheme | Code | Specification |
             +-----------------------+------+---------------+
             | H2_TREE               |  1   | Section 3.2.1 |
             | URGENCY               |  2   | Section 3.2.2 |
             +-----------------------+------+---------------+

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-quic-http]
              Bishop, M., "Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 3
              (HTTP/3)", draft-ietf-quic-http-23 (work in progress),
              September 2019.

   [I-D.ietf-quic-transport]
              Iyengar, J. and M. Thomson, "QUIC: A UDP-Based Multiplexed
              and Secure Transport", draft-ietf-quic-transport-23 (work
              in progress), September 2019.

   [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>.

   [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>.

   [RFC7230]  Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer
              Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing",
              RFC 7230, DOI 10.17487/RFC7230, June 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7230>.

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   [RFC7540]  Belshe, M., Peon, R., and M. Thomson, Ed., "Hypertext
              Transfer Protocol Version 2 (HTTP/2)", RFC 7540,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7540, May 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7540>.

   [STRUCTURED-HEADERS]
              Nottingham, M. and P. Kamp, "Structured Headers for HTTP",
              draft-ietf-httpbis-header-structure-14 (work in progress),
              October 2019.

10.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.lassey-priority-setting]
              Lassey, B. and L. Pardue, "Declaring Support for HTTP/2
              Priorities", draft-lassey-priority-setting-00 (work in
              progress), July 2019.

   [RFC3864]  Klyne, G., Nottingham, M., and J. Mogul, "Registration
              Procedures for Message Header Fields", BCP 90, RFC 3864,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3864, September 2004,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3864>.

   [RFC7239]  Petersson, A. and M. Nilsson, "Forwarded HTTP Extension",
              RFC 7239, DOI 10.17487/RFC7239, June 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7239>.

   [RFC8081]  Lilley, C., "The "font" Top-Level Media Type", RFC 8081,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8081, February 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8081>.

   [RFC8586]  Ludin, S., Nottingham, M., and N. Sullivan, "Loop
              Detection in Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)", RFC 8586,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8586, April 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8586>.

10.3.  URIs

   [1] http://tools.ietf.org/agenda/83/slides/slides-83-httpbis-5.pdf

   [2] https://github.com/pmeenan/http3-prioritization-proposal

Appendix A.  Acknowledgements

   Roy Fielding presented the idea of using a header field for
   representing priorities in http://tools.ietf.org/agenda/83/slides/
   slides-83-httpbis-5.pdf [1].  In https://github.com/pmeenan/http3-
   prioritization-proposal [2], Patrick Meenan advocates for
   representing the priorities using a tuple of urgency and concurrency.

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   The negotiation scheme described in this document is based on
   [I-D.lassey-priority-setting], authored by Brad Lassey and Lucas
   Pardue.

   The motivation for defining an alternative to HTTP/2 priorities is
   drawn from discussion within the broad HTTP community.  Special
   thanks to Roberto Peon, Martin Thomson and Netflix for text that was
   incorporated explicitly in this document.

   In addition to the people above, this document owes a lot to the
   extensive discussion in the HTTP priority design team, consisting of
   Alan Frindell, Andrew Galloni, Craig Taylor, Ian Swett, Kazuho Oku,
   Lucas Pardue, Matthew Cox, Mike Bishop, Roberto Peon, Robin Marx, Roy
   Fielding.

Appendix B.  Change Log

B.1.  Since draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-02

   o  Consolidation of the problem statement (#61, #73)

   o  Define SETTINGS_PRIORITIES for negotiation (#58, #69)

   o  Define PRIORITY_UPDATE frame for HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 (#51)

   o  Explain fairness issue and mitigations (#56)

B.2.  Since draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-01

   o  Explain how reprioritization might be supported.

B.3.  Since draft-kazuho-httpbis-priority-00

   o  Expand urgency levels from 3 to 8.

Authors' Addresses

   Kazuho Oku
   Fastly

   Email: kazuhooku@gmail.com

   Lucas Pardue
   Cloudflare

   Email: lucaspardue.24.7@gmail.com

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