Internet DRAFT - draft-nandy-utkarsh-pim-mcast-path-mtu

draft-nandy-utkarsh-pim-mcast-path-mtu



INTERNET-DRAFT                                      Tathagata Nandy
Intended Status: Proposed Standard                  HPE 
                                                    Utkarsh Srivastava
                                                    HPE
Expires: 18 July 2021                               January 18, 2021

                          Multicast Path MTU
        draft-nandy-utkarsh-pim-mcast-path-mtu-00
		
Abstract
   Path MTU discovery (rfc1191) is a standard technique to determine
   the supported MTU between two Internet Protocol (IP) hosts to avoid
   any fragmentation. In a multicast distribution tree, source will
   not know where the receivers are located. So the technique used to
   compute the path MTU for a unicast stream does not work in a
   multicast network.  This document describes a method to discover
   multicast path MTU with the goal to avoid traffic loss. This
   solution also aims to solve the problem of traffic loss in for
   multicast streams because of incorrect MTU setting and no path MTU
   support for multicast networks. 
  
Status of This Memo
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 18 July 2021.
   
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   4.  Multicast Path MTU  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   6. IANA considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   7. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     7.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     7.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   8. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8	 
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8

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1.  Introduction
   When one IP host has a large amount of data to send to another
   host, the data is transmitted as a series of IP datagrams. It is
   usually preferable that these datagrams be of the largest size that
   does not require fragmentation anywhere along the path from the
   source to the destination.  (For the case against fragmentation,
   see [5].) This datagram size is referred to as the Path MTU (PMTU),
   and it is equal to the minimum of the MTUs of each hop in the path.
   A shortcoming of the current Internet protocol suite is the lack of
   a standard mechanism for a host to discover the PMTU of an
   arbitrary path.  Note: The Path MTU is what in [1] is called the
   "Effective MTU for sending" (EMTU_S). A PMTU is associated with a
   path, which is a particular combination of IP source and
   destination address and perhaps a Type-of-service (TOS).  The
   current practice [1] is to use the lesser of 576 and the first-hop
   MTU as the PMTU for any destination that is not connected to the
   same network or subnet as the source.  In computer networking,
   multicast is group communication where data transmission is
   addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously.
   Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution.
   Multicast should not be confused with physical layer
   point-to-multipoint communication. Ethernet frames with a value of
   1 in the least-significant bit of the first octet of the
   destination address are treated as multicast frames and are flooded
   to all points on the network. This mechanism constitutes multicast
   at the data link layer. This mechanism is used by IP multicast to
   achieve one-to-many transmission for IP on Ethernet networks.
   Modern Ethernet controllers filter received packets to reduce CPU
   load, by looking up the hash of a multicast destination address in
   a table, initialized by software, which controls whether a
   multicast packet is dropped or fully received.  IP multicast is a
   technique for one-to-many communication over an IP network. The
   destination nodes send Internet Group Management Protocol join and
   leave messages, for example in the case of IPTV when the user
   changes from one TV channel to another. Multicast uses network
   infrastructure efficiently by requiring the source to send a packet
   only once, even if it needs to be delivered to a large number of
   receivers. The nodes in the network take care of replicating the
   packet to reach multiple receivers only when necessary.
 
2.  Conventions used in this document
2.1.  Terminology
   The reader is assumed to be familiar with the terminology,
   reference models, and taxonomy defined in [RFC4664] and [RFC4665].
   For readability purposes, we repeat some of the terms here.
   Moreover, we also propose some other terms needed when IP multicast
   support is discussed.
   
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   Multicast domain
      An area in which multicast data is transmitted. In this
      document, this term has a generic meaning that can refer to
      Layer-2 and Layer-3.  Generally, the Layer-3 multicast domain is
      determined by the Layer-3 multicast protocol used to establish
      reachability between all potential receivers in the
      corresponding domain. The Layer-2 multicast domain can be the
      same as the Layer-2 broadcast domain (i.e., VLAN), but it may be
      restricted to being smaller than the Layer-2 broadcast domain if
      an additional control protocol is used.

   PIM-SM
      Protocol Independent Multicast Sparse Mode (PIM-SM) is a family
      of multicast routing protocols for Internet Protocol (IP)
      networks that provide one-to-many and many-to-many distribution
      of data over a LAN, WAN or the Internet.  It explicitly builds
      unidirectional shared trees rooted at a rendezvous point (RP)
      per group, and optionally creates shortest-path trees per
      source. PIM-SM uses shared trees by default and implements
      source-based trees for efficiency; it assumes that no hosts want
      the multicast traffic unless they specifically ask for it.
      Senders first send the multicast data to the RP, which in turn
      sends the data down the shared tree to the receivers.
   
   PIM-SSM
      PIM source-specific multicast (SSM) uses a subset of PIM sparse
      mode and IGMP version 3 (IGMPv3) to allow a client to receive
      multicast traffic directly from the source. PIM SSM uses the
      PIM sparse-mode functionality to create an SPT between the
      receiver and the source, but builds the SPT without the help of 
      an RP.

2.2.  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].

3.  Problem Statement
3.1.  Motivation
   Path MTU discovery computes the lowest MTU supported between two
   hosts to avoid IP fragmentation. For a unicast packet, source
   device sends out a packet with Don't Fragment (DF) flag bit set in
   the IP header [1]. Any device along the path whose MTU is
   smaller than the packet will drop the packet and send back an ICMP
   Packet Too Big (Type 2) message containing its MTU, allowing the
   source host to reduce its Path MTU appropriately. The process is
   repeated until the MTU is small enough to traverse the entire path
   without fragmentation.  In a multicast distribution tree, the
   source does not know the host for a multicast group till the
   complete multicast tree is built.  Hosts in different branches of
   
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   the tree use IGMP/MLD followed by PIM to become part of the
   multicast tree. Generally the process starts at the host where it
   sends a request to become part of a multicast tree through IGMP
   joins.  The same request is sent to the RP and there by source and
   group develop a common path.  So the technique mentioned above may
   not work for multicast flows.

3.2.  Scalability
   Most routers doesn't send ICMP (unreachable; fragmentation needed)
   messages in response to too-big IPv4 multicast packets with DF-bit
   set. They're just dropping these packets silently, breaking PMTUD.
   This is a case of as-per-design feature and is updated in section
   7.2 of RFC 1112 that an ICMP error message (Destination
   Unreachable, Time Exceeded, Parameter Problem, Source Quench, or
   Redirect) is never generated in response to a datagram destined to
   an IP host group.  The same document also describes why RFC 1112
   prohibits sending ICMP error messages in response to multicast
   datagrams. The processing done on ICMP error replies by the *nix
   socket API might block the sender socket if an error comes back
   from a single receiver or if TTL expires when traversing a
   particularly long branch of the multicast tree, not exactly a good
   idea in multicast environment.


4.  Multicast Path MTU 
   The multicast Stream between a Source and a Host for a particular
   Group uses the following path. 

   1.  The Sender device connected Router, periodically sends probe
       messages for a well-known Multicast Group that falls in the
       PIM-SSM range. The probe packet here is nothing but small
       packets whose destination IP falls in the SSM group range. 
       This should be a reserved IP and should not be used for
       any other regular multicast stream.

   2.  The Probe packets are different from the actual packets that 
       the Source is sending. This algorithm runs on the Routers 
       and not on the actual Source sending the Stream.

   3.  The receiver Routers will also run periodic probing to the
       Source(s). As part of the probe the receiving Routers will 
       run Path MTU protocol to the Source Device. The PMTU will 
       run only for Active Sources when they receive the Probe 
       packets. This is the reason, the Sender device needs to
       send periodic probe packets.

   4.  This will be performed at all the Receiver Routers 
       (Designated Router). All these Receiver Routers would also
       use the same Source which would be specifically reserved 
       for PMTU computation. This is the PIM SSM source for 
       the specified Group.

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   5.  There are two options, one is the receiver Router
       (Host Connected DR) themselves sending a PIM Join for
       these Groups to the sources or optionally it can act 
       on this by receiving an IGMP v3 join. In the latter 
       case , the Host device need to send IGMP v3 joins to 
       the Sources for Computing Path MTU

   6.  The Receiver DR (Host Connected) would compute PMTU 
       to the Source by sending Probe packets of different 
       sizes.
	   
   7.  Once the receiver Router has computed the PMTU to the
       Source connected DR, the PMTU will be sent to the 
       Source Router via a new option in PIM Join packet or
       a new type of PIM packet. A new ICMP packet is not 
       chosen for this as this algorithm is supposed to
       run inside the PIM Application.
	   
    8. Once the Source Connected Designated Router receives
       the PMTU for all the connected paths, it would compute
       the minimum MTU and send it back to the Source device.
       This takes away all the computation headache from the
       Source Device. The Source device will get the periodic
       MTU update from all the Routers and should never send 
       any packets with a MTU higher than this. The assumption
       is that TCP/IP stack with ICMP packets is implemented 
       in all the Sources, so internally it can handle the
       ICMP packets.
	   
    9. The probing packets sent by the sender device can be
       of reduced frequency to prevent congestion
	   
    10. The receiver can keep sending the probe packets 
        as long as it has an intended Host.

5  IANA Considerations
   This memo includes no request to IANA.

6  Security Considerations
   This Path MTU Discovery mechanism makes possible two
   denial-of-service attacks, both based on a malicious party sending
   false Datagram Too Big messages to an Internet host.  In the first
   attack, the false message indicates a PMTU much smaller than
   reality. This should not entirely stop data flow, since the victim
   host should never set its PMTU estimate below the absolute minimum,
   but at 8 octets of IP data per datagram, progress could be slow.
   In the other attack, the false message indicates a PMTU greater
   than reality.  If believed, this could cause temporary blockage as
  
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   the victim sends datagrams that will be dropped by some router.
   Within one round-trip time, the host would discover its mistake
   (receiving Datagram Too Big messages from that router), but
   frequent repetition of this attack could cause lots of datagrams to
   be dropped. A host, however, should never raise its estimate of the
   PMTU based on a Datagram Too Big message, so should not be
   vulnerable to this attack.  A malicious party could also cause
   problems if it could stop a victim from receiving legitimate
   Datagram Too Big messages, but in this case there are simpler
   denial-of-service attacks available.  In another case if the
   packets are always rejected because of higher MTU and the sender
   does not change the packet size or the admin does not adjust the
   MTU, there is a risk of a DOS attack on the Switch sending the ICMP
   Error packet. Multicast packet send at high rate can consume the
   CPU resources of all the Routers implementing the PMTU for
   Multicast.

7  References
7.1  Normative References
   [1]  J. Mogul, S. Deering. Path MTU Discovery. RFC 1191, DECWRL
        and Stanford University, November, 1990.
   [2]  J. Postel, INTERNET CONTROL MESSAGE PROTOCOL. RFC 791,
        ISI, September 1981.
7.2  Informative References
   [3]  <https://blog.ipspace.net/2015/09/
        path-mtu-discovery-doesnt-work-with-ip.html>
   [4]  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast>
   [5]  <https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/
        ios-nx-os-software/ip-multicast/whitepaper_c11-508498.html>

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8  Acknowledgments
   The authors thank the contributors of [RFC1191] and RFC{5501] since
   the structure and content of this document were, for some sections,
   largely inspired from it.  The authors also thank Mark Pearson and
   others for their valuable reviews and feedback.  THIS SOFTWARE IS
   PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY
   EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
   IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
   PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR
   CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
   SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
   LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF
   USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
   ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,
   OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT
   OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
   SUCH DAMAGE.
 
9  Authors' Addresses
   Tathagata Nandy
   Hewlett Packard India Software Operations Pvt. Ltd.
   Survey # 192, Whitefield Road, 
   Mahadevapura Post, Bangalore 560048. India
   Phone: (+91) 9611895857
   EMail: tathagata.nandy@hpe.com

   
   Utkarsh Srivastava
   Hewlett Packard India Software Operations Pvt. Ltd.  
   Survey # 192, Whitefield Road, 
   Mahadevapura Post, Bangalore 560048. India
   Phone: (+91) 8948794936
   EMail: usrivastava@hpe.com

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