Internet DRAFT - draft-toutain-core-time-scale

draft-toutain-core-time-scale







Network Working Group                                        A. Minaburo
Internet-Draft                                                    Acklio
Intended status: Informational                                L. Toutain
Expires: April 29, 2018                Institut Mines Telecom Atlantique
                                                        October 26, 2017


                         CoAP Time Scale Option
                    draft-toutain-core-time-scale-00

Abstract

   SCHC compression mechanism for LPWAN network enables IPv6 on devices
   connected to a constrained network (LPWAN).  They can communicate
   with a CoAP server located anywhere in the Internet.  LPWAN network
   characteristics limits the number of exchanges and may impose a long
   RTT.  The CoAP server must be aware of these properties to manage
   correctly requests.  The Time Scale option allows a device to inform
   a CoAP server of the duration the message ID value should be kept in
   memory to manage correctly message duplication.

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 April 29, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (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



Minaburo & Toutain       Expires April 29, 2018                 [Page 1]

Internet-Draft           CoAP Time Scale Option             October 2017


   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.

1.  CoAP Message ID

   Constraint Application Protocol (CoAP) [RFC7252] implements a simple
   reliable transport mechanism based on ARQ.  Each CoAP message
   contains a 16 bit Message ID (noted afterward MID).  A client selects
   a MID in a CON message and expects an ACK message containing the same
   MID value.  A timer makes the client resend the request if no ACK is
   received during a pre-defined period.

   To avoid a second process of duplicated requests by the server, a
   list of messages ID already acknowledged must be maintained for a
   period of time.  If the message ID is already in the list, the
   message is just acknowledged and not processed by upper layer.
   Therefore, the client cannot use this MID value in another request
   during the same period of time.


               client                              server
                 |           CON MID = XXXX          |
                 |---------------------------------->|=> process
    EXCHANGE   ^ |           ACK MID = XXXX          |  ^
    LIFETIME   | |                  <----------------|  | EXCHANGE
               | |                                   |  | LIFETIME
     XXXX      | |           CON MID = XXXX          |  |
     cannot    | |---------------------------------->|  | XXXX in
     be reused | |           ACK MID = XXXX          |  | memory
               | |<----------------------------------|  |
               | |                                   |  |
               v |                                   |  v
    XXXX can be  .                                   .
    reused       .                                   .
                 .                                   .
                 |           CON MID = XXXX          |
                 |---------------------------------->|=> process
               ^ |           ACK MID = XXXX          |  ^
               | |<----------------------------------|  |
                 .                                   .


                      Figure 1: Delayed transmission.

   [RFC7252] calls the period a MID is assigned to a request the
   EXCHANGE_LIFETIME.  The value is based on the worst case scenario



Minaburo & Toutain       Expires April 29, 2018                 [Page 2]

Internet-Draft           CoAP Time Scale Option             October 2017


   taking into account the propagation time, the number of
   retransmissions and the processing time.  The default value for
   EXCHANGE_LIFETIME is set to 247 seconds for MAX_RTT of 202 seconds.

2.  LPWAN networks

   Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) family regroups networks
   dedicated to the Internet of Things.  They provide a large coverage
   with a limited energy consumption.  They mostly use the license-free
   ISM band.  The [I-D.ietf-lpwan-overview] gives an overview of the
   technology and the star oriented topology architecture.  A Network
   Gateway (NGW) is at the interconnection between the LPWAN and the
   Internet network.

   To ensure fairness among nodes, regulation imposes a duty cycle.  In
   practice, with a 1% duty cycle, a node sending a message of s seconds
   must wait 99 x s seconds before sending another message.  For
   instance, in some technologies sending a 50 bytes message takes 2
   seconds, forcing a silence of 198 seconds.

   The device sleeps most of the time to preserve energy.  If a device
   can use the uplink channel at any time, downlink channel is generally
   available during a short receiving window following the message
   emission.  Therefore a message sent to a device out of this receiving
   window will be lost.  Network Gateways are aware of this restriction
   and buffers downlink messages until an uplink message is received
   which opens the receiving window.

   Figure 2 illustrates this.  A CoAP client sends a request every hour.
   Even if the server replies immediately, the answer may be buffered by
   the Network GW until an new uplink message is sent.  In that case,
   the client will only receive the answer after one hour when the next
   request is sent.  The RTT is influenced by the message periodicity
   and the EXCHANGE_LIFTEIME value can be computed locally by client to
   dimension its timers.
















Minaburo & Toutain       Expires April 29, 2018                 [Page 3]

Internet-Draft           CoAP Time Scale Option             October 2017


        client on LPWAN         NGW               server
               |                 |                 |
           ^   |---------------------------------->| CON MID = 1
           |   |                 |                 |
    1 hour |   |         delayed H<----------------| ACK MID = 1
           |   |                 H                 |
           |   |                 H                 |
           |   |                 H                 |
           v   |---------------------------------->| CON MID = 2
   ACK MID = 1 |<----------------|                 |
               |                 |                 |
               v                 v                 v


                      Figure 2: Delayed transmission.

   The server should remain as generic as possible and EXCHANGE_LIFETIME
   parameter has to be adapted to the client behavior.  If the period is
   too large, the server will have to memorize a longer list of MID for
   fast responding client.  On the other hand, if the EXCHANGE_LIFETIME
   is too short, this leads to misbehaviors as shown in Figure 3, a
   retransmission will be viewed as a new request.


        client on LPWAN         NGW               server
               |   CON MID = 1   |                 |
    Timer  -   |---------------------------------->| => process
           |   |         delayed H<----------------| ^
           |   |                 H   ACK MID = 1   | | EXCHANGE
           |   |                 H                 | v LIFETIME
           |   |   CON MID = 2   H                 |
           |   |---------------------------------->|
           |   |       X---------|                 |
           |   |                 |                 |
           |   |   CON MID = 1   |                 |
   Expire  O   |---------------------------------->| => process
               |                 |<----------------|
               .                 .   ACK MID = 1   .
               .                 .                 .


                         Figure 3: Retransmission.

   The Time Scale option, added into all the CoAP requests, informs the
   server of the duration a message ID should be memorized into the
   server and therefore the duration during which a client should not
   reuse the same message ID for a new request.  This way, the server
   can adapt its behavior to different environments.



Minaburo & Toutain       Expires April 29, 2018                 [Page 4]

Internet-Draft           CoAP Time Scale Option             October 2017


   It is important to notice that this option will not contribute to an
   DoS attack.  This option does not increase the number of message ID
   memorized by the server.  In fact, the Time Scale option can be
   viewed as a contract between the client and the server, which means
   that the client will send a reasonable number of request during that
   period.  The number of memorized message ID is independent of the
   duration of the exchange but linked to the number a simultaneous
   request a client can send.  If a client is sending a number of
   request larger than expected, they can be easily discarded by the
   server.

3.  Timescale Option

   Timescale is a new CoAP option that tells the server how many seconds
   the MID should be memorized by the server.  This option must be
   included in all the exchanges coming from a high latency device.


    +--------+---+---+---+---+-------------+--------+--------+---------+
    | Number | C | U | N | R |   Name      | Format | Length | Default |
    +--------+---+---+---+---+-------------+--------+--------+---------+
    |   259  | X |   |   |   | Time Scale  |  uint  |  1-4   |   3600  |
    +--------+---+---+---+---+-------------+--------+--------+---------+

                       Figure 4: Time Scale Option.

   This option is critical, if a server does not recognize it, it must
   inform the client that EXCHANGE_LIFETIME cannot be modified.  The
   option is Safe-to-forward so a proxy does not have to understand this
   option, since only the server is concerned with the MID management.
   The value (in seconds) contains the new EXCHANGE_LIFETIME set by the
   server for this request.  If the value is smaller than the default
   value, this option is discarded and the client receives an error
   message.

4.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-lpwan-overview]
              Farrell, S., "LPWAN Overview", draft-ietf-lpwan-
              overview-07 (work in progress), October 2017.

   [RFC7252]  Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
              Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, June 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7252>.






Minaburo & Toutain       Expires April 29, 2018                 [Page 5]

Internet-Draft           CoAP Time Scale Option             October 2017


Authors' Addresses

   Ana Minaburo
   Acklio
   2bis rue de la Chataigneraie
   35510 Cesson-Sevigne Cedex
   France

   Email: ana@ackl.io


   Laurent Toutain
   Institut Mines Telecom Atlantique
   2 rue de la Chataigneraie
   CS 17607
   35576 Cesson-Sevigne Cedex
   France

   Email: Laurent.Toutain@imt-atlantique.fr
































Minaburo & Toutain       Expires April 29, 2018                 [Page 6]