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Making Multipath TCP robust for stateless webservers
draft-paasch-mptcp-syncookies-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Authors Christoph Paasch , Anumita Biswas , Darren Haas
Last updated 2015-04-27
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draft-paasch-mptcp-syncookies-00
MPTCP Working Group                                            C. Paasch
Internet-Draft                                                 A. Biswas
Intended status: Experimental                                    D. Haas
Expires: October 29, 2015                                    Apple, Inc.
                                                          April 27, 2015

          Making Multipath TCP robust for stateless webservers
                    draft-paasch-mptcp-syncookies-00

Abstract

   This document proposes an extension to Multipath TCP that allows it
   to work efficiently with stateless servers.  We first identify the
   issues around stateless connection establishment using SYN-cookies.
   Further, we suggest an extension to Multipath TCP to overcome these
   issues and discuss alternatives.

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
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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 29, 2015.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 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
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   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of

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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Proposal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Loss of the third ACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
       3.1.1.  Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       3.1.2.  DATA_FIN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       3.1.3.  Middlebox considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  Loss of the first data segment  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   4.  Alternative solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     7.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     7.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9

1.  Introduction

   During the establishment of a TCP connection, a server must create
   state upon the reception of the SYN [RFC0793].  Specifically, it
   needs to generate an initial sequence number, and reply to the
   options indicated in the SYN.  The server typically maintains in-
   memory state for the embryonic connection, including state about what
   options were negotiated, such as window scale factor [RFC7323] and
   the maximum segment size.  It also maintains state about whether SACK
   [RFC2018] and TCP Timestamps were negotiated during the 3-way
   handshake.

   Attackers exploit this state creation on the server through the SYN-
   flooding attack.  Indeed, an attacker only needs to emit SYN segments
   with different 4-tuples (source and destination IP addresses and port
   numbers) in order to make the server create the state and thus
   consume its memory, while the attacker itself does not need to
   maintain any state for such an attack [RFC4987].

   A common mitigation of this attack is to use a mechanism called SYN-
   cookies.  SYN-cookies relies on the fact that a TCP-connection echoes
   back certain information that the server puts in the SYN/ACK during
   the three-way handshake.  Notably, the sequence-number is echoed back
   in the acknowledgment field as well as the TCP timestamp value inside
   the timestamp option.  When generating the SYN/ACK, the server
   generates these fields in a verifiable fashion.  Typically, servers
   use the 4-tuple, the client's sequence number plus a local secret

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   (which changes over time) to generate the initial sequence number by
   applying a hashing function to the aforementioned fields.  Further,
   setting certain bits either in the sequence number or the TCP
   timestamp value allows to encode for example whether SACK has been
   negotiated and what window-scaling has been received [M08].  Upon the
   reception of the third ACK, the server can thus verify whether the
   acknowledgment number is indeed the reply to a SYN/ACK it has
   generated (using the 4-tuple and the local secret).  Further, it can
   decode from the timestamp echo reply the required information
   concerning SACK, window scaling and MSS-size.

   In case the third ACK is lost during the 3-way handshake of TCP,
   stateless servers only work if it's the client who initiates the
   communication by sending data to the server - which is commonly the
   case in today's application-layer protocols.  As the data segment
   includes the acknowledgement number for the original SYN/ACK as well
   as the TCP timestamp value, the server is able to reconstruct the
   connection state even if the third ACK is lost in the network.  If
   the very first data segment is also lost, then the server is unable
   to reconstruct the connection state and will respond to subsequent
   data sent by the client with a TCP Reset.

   Multipath TCP (MPTCP [RFC6824]) is unable to reconstruct the MPTCP
   level connection state if the third ack is lost in the network (as
   explained in the following section).  If the first data segment from
   the client reaches the server, the server can reconstruct the TCP
   state but not the MPTCP state.  Such a server can fallback to regular
   TCP upon the loss of the third ACK.  MPTCP is also prone to the same
   problem as regular TCP if the first data segment is also lost.

   In the following section a more detailed assessment of the issues
   with MPTCP and TCP SYN-cookies is presented.  Section 3 then shows
   how these issues might get solved.

2.  Problem statement

   Multipath TCP adds additional state to the 3-way handshake.  Notably,
   the keys must be stored in the state so that later on new subflows
   can be established as well as the initial data sequence number is
   known to both hosts.  In order to support stateless servers,
   Multipath TCP echoes the keys in the third ACK.  A stateless server
   thus can generate its own key in a verifiable fashion (similar to the
   initial sequence number), and is able to learn the client's key
   through the echo in the third ACK.  The reliance on the third ACK
   however implies that if this segment gets lost, then the server
   cannot reconstruct the state associated to the MPTCP connection.
   Indeed, a Multipath TCP connection is forced to fallback to regular
   TCP in case the third ACK gets lost or has been reordered with the

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   first data segment of the client, because it cannot infer the
   client's key from the connection and thus won't be able to generate a
   valid HMAC to establish new subflows nor does it know the initial
   data sequence number.  In the remainder of this document we refer to
   the aforementioned issue as "Loss of the third ACK".

   Another issue with SYN-cookies is also present in regular TCP and
   occurs as well due to packet loss.  In case the client is sending
   multiple segments when initiating the connection, it might be that
   the third ack as well as the first data segment get lost.  Thus, the
   server only receives the second data segment and will try to
   reconstruct the state based on this segment's 4-tuple, sequence
   number and timestamp value.  However, as this segment's sequence
   number has already gone beyond the client's initial sequence number,
   it will not be able to regenerate the appropriate SYN-cookie and thus
   the verification will fail.  The server effectively cannot infer that
   the sequence number in the segment has gone beyond TCP's initial
   sequence number.  This will make the server send a TCP reset as it
   appears to the server that it received a segment for which no SYN
   cookie was ever generated.

3.  Proposal

   This section shows how the above problems might be solved in
   Multipath TCP.

3.1.  Loss of the third ACK

   In order to make Multipath TCP robust against the loss of the third
   ACK when SYN-cookies are being deployed on servers, we must make sure
   that the state-information relevant to Multipath TCP reaches the
   server in a reliable way.  As the client is initiating the data
   transfer to the server, and this data is being delivered reliably,
   the state-information could be delivered together with this data and
   thus is implicitly reliably sent to the server - when the data
   reaches the server, the state-information reaches the server as well.

   We achieve this by defining a new MPTCP subtype (called
   MP_CAPABLE_EXT) which is an extension of the existing MP_CAPABLE
   option.  It is solely sent on the very first data segment from the
   client to the server.  This option serves the dual purpose of
   conveying the client's and server's key as well as the DSS mapping
   which would otherwise have been sent in a DSS option on the first
   data segment.  The MP_CAPABLE_EXT option (shown in Figure 1) contains
   the same set of bits A to H as well as the version number, like the
   MP_CAPABLE option.  The server behaves in a stateless manner and thus
   has generated it's own key in a verifiable fashion (e.g., as a hash
   of the 4-tuple, sequence number and a local secret - similar to what

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   is done for the TCP-sequence number in case of SYN-cookies
   [RFC4987]).  It is thus able to verify whether it is indeed the
   originator of the key echoed back in the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option.

   Further, the option includes the data-level length as well as the
   checksum (in case it has been negotiated during the 3-way handshake).
   This allows the server to reconstruct the mapping and deliver the
   data to the application.  It must be noted that the information
   inside the MP_CAPABLE_EXT is less explicit than a DSS option.
   Notably, the data-sequence number, data acknowledgment as well as the
   relative subflow-sequence number are not part of the MP_CAPABLE_EXT.
   Nevertheless, the server is able to reconstruct the mapping because
   the MP_CAPABLE_EXT is guaranteed to only be sent on the very first
   data segment.  Thus, implicitly the relative subflow-sequence number
   equals 1 as well as the data-sequence number, which is equal to the
   initial data-sequence number.

                          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
     +---------------+---------------+-------+-----------------------+
     |     Kind      |    Length=16  |Subtype|Version|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|
     +---------------+---------------+-------+-----------------------+
     |                  Sender's Key (64 bits)                       |
     |                                                               |
     +---------------+---------------+-------+-----------------------+
     |                 Receiver's Key (64 bits)                      |
     |                                                               |
     +---------------------------------------------------------------+
     | Data-Level Length (2 octets)  | Checksum (2 octets, optional) |
     +---------------------------------------------------------------+

                 Format of the new MP_CAPABLE_EXT option.

                                 Figure 1

   It must be said that if TCP Fastopen [RFC7413] is being used in
   combination with Multipath TCP [I-D.barre-mptcp-tfo], the SYN segment
   covering part of the data sequence space might be a concern.
   However, if TFO is being used, servers do not employ stateless
   connection establishment, thus TFO is not of concern for the
   MP_CAPABLE_EXT option.

   While the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option lets us recover from loss of the 3rd
   ACK of the 3WHS as well as loss of the first data segment, it has the
   additional benefit of allowing a client to piggyback data on the 3rd
   ACK of the 3WHS of the first MPTCP subflow.

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3.1.1.  Negotiation

   We require a way for the hosts to negotiate support for the
   MP_CAPABLE_EXT option.  As it is a new option, MP_CAPABLE_EXT relies
   on a new version of MPTCP.  The client requests this new version of
   MPTCP during the MP_CAPABLE exchange (it remains to be defined by the
   IETF which version of MPTCP includes the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option).  If
   the server supports this version, it replies with a SYN/ACK including
   the MP_CAPABLE and indicating this same version.

   If the server desires to do SYN-cookies and supports receiving the
   MP_CAPABLE_EXT option it sets the C-bit to 1.  As the client
   indicated in the SYN that it supports the new version of MPTCP, it
   must use the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option in the first data segment.

3.1.2.  DATA_FIN

   As the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option includes the same bitfields as the
   regular MP_CAPABLE, there is no space to indicate a DATA_FIN as is
   done in the DSS option.  This implies that a client cannot send a
   DATA_FIN together with the first segment of data.  Thus, if the
   server requests the usage of MP_CAPABLE_EXT through the C-bit, the
   client must send a separate segment with the DSS-option, setting the
   DATA_FIN-flag to 1, after it has sent the data-segment that includes
   the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option.

3.1.3.  Middlebox considerations

   Multipath TCP has been designed with middleboxes in mind and so the
   MP_CAPABLE_EXT option must also be able to go through middleboxes.
   The following middlebox behaviors have been considered and
   MP_CAPABLE_EXT acts accordingly across these middleboxes:

   o  Removing MP_CAPABLE_EXT-option: If a middlebox strips the
      MP_CAPABLE_EXT option out of the data segment, the server receives
      data without a corresponding mapping.  As defined in Section 3.6
      of [RFC6824], the server must then do a seamless fallback to
      regular TCP.

   o  Coalescing segments: A middlebox might coalesce the first and
      second data segment into one single segment.  While doing so, it
      might remove one of the options (either MP_CAPABLE_EXT or the DSS-
      option of the second segment because of the limited 40 bytes TCP
      option space).  If the DSS-option is not included in the segment,
      the second half of the payload is not covered by a mapping.  Thus,
      the server will do a seamless fallback to regular TCP as defined
      by [RFC6824].  However, if the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option is not
      present, then the DSS-option provides an offset of the TCP

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      sequence number.  As the server behaves statelessly it can only
      assume that the present mapping belongs to the first byte of the
      payload (similar to what is explained in detail in Section 3.2.
      As this however is not true, it will calculate an incorrect
      initial TCP sequence number and thus reply with a TCP-reset as the
      SYN-cookie is invalid.  As such kind of middleboxes are very rare
      we consider this behavior as acceptable.

   o  Splitting segments: A TCP segmentation offload engine (TSO) might
      split the first segment in smaller segments and copy the
      MP_CAPABLE_EXT option on each of these segments.  Thanks to the
      data-length value included in the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option, the
      server is able to detect this and correctly reconstructs the
      mapping.  In case the first of these splitted segments gets lost,
      the server finds itself in a situation similar to the one
      described in Section 2.  The TCP sequence number doesn't allow
      anymore to verify the SYN-cookie and thus a TCP reset is sent.
      This behavior is the same as for regular TCP.

   o  Payload modifying middlebox: In case the middlebox modifies the
      payload, the DSS-checksum included in the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option
      allows to detect this and will trigger a fallback to regular TCP
      as defined in [RFC6824].

3.2.  Loss of the first data segment

   Section 2 described the issue of losing the first data segment of a
   connection while TCP SYN-cookies are in use.  The following outlines
   how Multipath TCP actually allows to fix this particular issue.

   Consider the packet-flow of Figure 2.  Upon reception of the second
   data segment, the included data sequence mapping allows the server to
   actually detect that this is not the first segment of a TCP
   connection.  Indeed, the relative subflow sequence number inside the
   DSS-mapping is actually 100, indicating that this segment is already
   further ahead in the TCP stream.  This allows the server to actually
   reconstruct the initial sequence number based on the sequence number
   in the TCP-header ((X+100) - 100) that has been provided by the
   client and verify whether its SYN-cookie is correct.  Thus, no TCP-
   reset is being sent - in contrast to regular TCP, where the server
   cannot verify the SYN-cookie.  The server knows that the received
   segment is not the first one of the data stream and thus it can store
   it temporarily in the out-of-order queue of the connection.  It must
   be noted that the server is not yet able to fully reconstruct the
   MPTCP state.  In order to do this it still must await the
   MP_CAPABLE_EXT option that is provided in the first data segment.

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   The server responds to the out-of-order data with a Duplicate ACK.
   The Duplicate ACK may also have SACK data if SACK was negotiated.
   However, if this Duplicate ACK does not have an MPTCP level Data ACK,
   the client may interpret this as a fallback to TCP.  This is because
   the client cannot determine if an option stripping middlebox removed
   the MPTCP option on TCP segments after connection establishment.  So
   even though the server has not fully recreated the MPTCP state at
   this point, it should respond with a Data ACK set to the Data
   Sequence Number Y-100.  The client's TCP implementation may
   retransmit the first data segment after a TCP retransmit timeout or
   it may do so as part of an Early Retransmit that can be triggered by
   an ACK arriving from the server.

          Host A                                         Host B
          ------                                         ------
                         SYN + MP_CAPABLE
             -------------------------------------------->
                       SYN/ACK + MP_CAPABLE
             <--------------------------------------------
                   ACK + MP_CAPABLE
             -----------------------------------X

             DATA (TCP-seq = X) + MP_CAPABLE_EXT
             -----------------------------------X
             DATA (TCP-seq = X+100) + DSS (DSN = Y, subseq = 100)
             --------------------------------------------->

                   DATA_ACK (Y - 100)
             <---------------------------------------------

     Multipath TCP's DSS option allows to handle the loss of the first
      data segment as the host can infer the initial sequence number.

                                 Figure 2

4.  Alternative solutions

   An alternative solution to creating the MP_CAPABLE_EXT option would
   have been to emit the MP_CAPABLE-option together with the DSS-option
   on the first data segment.  However, as the MP_CAPABLE option is 20
   bytes long and the DSS-option (using 4-byte sequence numbers)
   consumes 16 bytes, a total of 36 bytes of the TCP option space would
   be consumed by this approach.  This option has been dismissed as it
   would prevent any other TCP option in the first data segment, a
   constraint that would severely limit TCP's extensibility in the
   future.

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5.  IANA Considerations

   A new codepoint must be allocated for this new MPTCP subtype.

6.  Security Considerations

   No security considerations.

7.  References

7.1.  Normative References

   [RFC4987]  Eddy, W., "TCP SYN Flooding Attacks and Common
              Mitigations", RFC 4987, August 2007.

   [RFC6824]  Ford, A., Raiciu, C., Handley, M., and O. Bonaventure,
              "TCP Extensions for Multipath Operation with Multiple
              Addresses", RFC 6824, January 2013.

7.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.barre-mptcp-tfo]
              Barre, S., Detal, G., and O. Bonaventure, "TFO support for
              Multipath TCP", draft-barre-mptcp-tfo-01 (work in
              progress), January 2015.

   [M08]      McManus, P., "Improving syncookies", 2008,
              <http://lwn.net/Articles/277146/>.

   [RFC0793]  Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, RFC
              793, September 1981.

   [RFC2018]  Mathis, M., Mahdavi, J., Floyd, S., and A. Romanow, "TCP
              Selective Acknowledgment Options", RFC 2018, October 1996.

   [RFC7323]  Borman, D., Braden, B., Jacobson, V., and R.
              Scheffenegger, "TCP Extensions for High Performance", RFC
              7323, September 2014.

   [RFC7413]  Cheng, Y., Chu, J., Radhakrishnan, S., and A. Jain, "TCP
              Fast Open", RFC 7413, December 2014.

Authors' Addresses

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   Christoph Paasch
   Apple, Inc.
   Cupertino
   US

   Email: cpaasch@apple.com

   Anumita Biswas
   Apple, Inc.
   Cupertino
   US

   Email: anumita_biswas@apple.com

   Darren Haas
   Apple, Inc.
   Cupertino
   US

   Email: dhaas@apple.com

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