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INFORMATIONAL
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         M. MathisRequest for Comments: 7713                                  Google, Inc.Category: Informational                                       B. BriscoeISSN: 2070-1721                                                       BT                                                           December 2015Congestion Exposure (ConEx) Concepts, Abstract Mechanism,and RequirementsAbstract   This document describes an abstract mechanism by which senders inform   the network about the congestion recently encountered by packets in   the same flow.  Today, network elements at any layer may signal   congestion to the receiver by dropping packets or by Explicit   Congestion Notification (ECN) markings, and the receiver passes this   information back to the sender in transport-layer feedback.  The   mechanism described here enables the sender to also relay this   congestion information back into the network in-band at the IP layer,   such that the total amount of congestion from all elements on the   path is revealed to all IP elements along the path, where it could,   for example, be used to provide input to traffic management.  This   mechanism is called Congestion Exposure, or ConEx.  The companion   document, "Congestion Exposure (ConEx) Concepts and Use Cases"   (RFC 6789), provides the entry point to the set of ConEx   documentation.Status of This Memo   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is   published for informational purposes.   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has   received public review and has been approved for publication by the   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet   Standard; seeSection 2 of RFC 5741.   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained athttp://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7713.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 1]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015Copyright Notice   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the   document authors.  All rights reserved.   This document is subject toBCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of   publication of this document.  Please review these documents   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as   described in the Simplified BSD License.Table of Contents1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32.  Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32.1.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63.  Requirements for the ConEx Abstract Mechanism . . . . . . . .73.1.  Requirements for ConEx Signals  . . . . . . . . . . . . .73.2.  Constraints on the Audit Function . . . . . . . . . . . .83.3.  Requirements for Non-abstract ConEx Specifications  . . .94.  Encoding Congestion Exposure  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124.1.  Naive Encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124.2.  Null Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134.3.  ECN-Based Encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134.4.  Independent Bits  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144.5.  Codepoint Encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144.6.  Units Implied by an Encoding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155.  Congestion Exposure Components  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165.1.  Network Devices (Not Modified)  . . . . . . . . . . . . .165.2.  Modified Senders  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165.3.  Receivers (Optionally Modified) . . . . . . . . . . . . .175.4.  Policy Devices  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175.4.1.  Congestion Monitoring Devices . . . . . . . . . . . .185.4.2.  Rest-of-Path Congestion Monitoring  . . . . . . . . .185.4.3.  Congestion Policers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185.5.  Audit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .196.  Support for Incremental Deployment  . . . . . . . . . . . . .237.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .258.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .278.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .278.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 2]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 20151.  Introduction   This document describes an abstract mechanism by which, to a first   approximation, senders inform the network about the congestion   encountered by packets earlier in the same flow.  It is not a   complete protocol specification because it is known that designing an   encoding (e.g., packet formats, codepoint allocations, etc.) is   likely to entail compromises that preclude some uses of the protocol.   The goal of this document is to provide a framework for developing   and testing algorithms to evaluate the benefits of the ConEx protocol   and to evaluate the consequences of the compromises in various   different encoding designs.  This document lays out requirements for   concrete protocol specifications.   A companion document [RFC6789] provides the entry point to the set of   ConEx documentation.  It outlines concepts that are prerequisites to   understanding why ConEx is useful, and it outlines various ways that   ConEx might be used.2.  Overview   As typical end-to-end transport protocols continually seek out more   network capacity, network elements signal whenever congestion   results, and the transports are responsible for controlling this   network congestion [RFC5681].  The more a transport tries to use   capacity that others want to use, the more congestion signals will be   attributable to that transport.  Likewise, the more transport   sessions sustained by a user and the longer the user sustains them,   the more congestion signals will be attributable to that user.  The   goal of ConEx is to ensure that the resulting congestion signals are   sufficiently visible and robust, because they are an ideal metric for   networks to use as the basis of traffic management or other related   functions.   Networks indicate congestion by three possible signals: packet loss,   ECN marking, or queueing delay.  ECN marking and some packet loss may   be the outcome of Active Queue Management (AQM), which the network   uses to warn senders to reduce their rates.  Packet loss is also the   natural consequence of complete exhaustion of a buffer or other   network resource.  Some experimental transport protocols and TCP   variants infer impending congestion from increasing queuing delay.   However, delay is too amorphous to use as a congestion metric.  In   this and other ConEx documents, the term 'congestion signals' is   generally used solely for ECN markings and packet losses because they   are unambiguous signals of congestion.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 3]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   In both cases, the congestion signals follow the route indicated in   Figure 1.  A congested network device sends a signal in the data   stream on the forward path to the transport receiver, the receiver   passes it back to the sender through transport-level feedback, and   the sender makes some congestion control adjustment.   This document extends the capabilities of the Internet protocol suite   with the addition of a new Congestion Exposure signal.  To a first   approximation, this signal (also shown in Figure 1) relays the   congestion information from the transport sender back through the   internetwork layer where it is visible to any interested   internetwork-layer devices along the forward path.  This document   frames the engineering problem of designing the ConEx Signal.  The   requirements are described inSection 3 and some example encodings   are presented inSection 4.Section 5 describes all of the protocol   components.   This new signal is expressly designed to support a variety of new   policy mechanisms that might be used to instrument, monitor, or   manage traffic.  The policy devices are not shown in Figure 1 but   might be placed anywhere along the forward data path (seeSection 5.4).   ,---------.                                               ,---------.   |Transport|                                               |Transport|   | Sender  |   .                                           |Receiver |   |         |  /|___________________________________________|         |   |     ,-<---------------Congestion-Feedback-Signals--<--------.     |   |     |   |/                                              |   |     |   |     |   |\           Transport Layer Feedback Flow      |   |     |   |     |   | \  ___________________________________________|   |     |   |     |   |  \|                                           |   |     |   |     |   |   '         ,-----------.               .     |   |     |   |     |   |_____________|           |_______________|\    |   |     |   |     |   |    IP Layer |           |  Data Flow      \   |   |     |   |     |   |             |(Congested)|                  \  |   |     |   |     |   |             |  Network  |--Congestion-Signals--->-'     |   |     |   |             |  Device   |                    \|         |   |     |   |             |           |                    /|         |   |     `----------->--(new)-IP-Layer-ConEx-Signals-------->|         |   |         |             |           |                  /  |         |   |         |_____________|           |_______________  /   |         |   |         |             |           |               |/    |         |   `---------'             `-----------'               '     `---------'            Figure 1: The Flow of Congestion and ConEx SignalsMathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 4]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   Since the policy devices can affect how traffic is treated, it is   assumed that there is an intrinsic motivation for users,   applications, or operating systems to understate the congestion that   they are causing.  Therefore, it is important to be able to audit   ConEx Signals and to be able to apply sufficient sanction to   discourage cheating of congestion policies.  The general approach to   auditing is to count signals on the forward path to confirm that   there are never fewer ConEx Signals than congestion signals.  Many   ConEx design constraints come from the need to assure that the audit   function is sufficiently robust.  The audit function is described inSection 5.5; however, significant portions of this document (and   prior research [Refb-dis]) are motivated by issues relating to the   audit function and making it robust.   The congestion and ConEx Signals shown in Figure 1 represent a series   of discrete events: ECN marks or lost packets, carried by the forward   data stream and fed back into the internetwork layer.  The policy and   audit functions are most likely to act on the accumulated values of   these signals, for which we use the term "volume".  For example,   "traffic volume" is the total number of bytes delivered optionally   over a specified time interval and over some aggregate of traffic   (e.g., all traffic from a site), while "loss volume" is the total   amount of bytes discarded from some aggregate over an interval.  The   term "congestion-volume" is defined precisely in [RFC6789].  Note   that volume per unit time is average rate.   A design goal of the ConEx protocol is that the important policy   mechanisms can be implemented per logical link without per-flow state   (seeSection 5.4).  However, the trade-off is that per-flow state   could be needed to audit ConEx Signals (Section 5.5).  This is   justified in that i) auditing at the edges, with a limited number of   flows, enables policy elsewhere, including in the core, without any   per-flow state; ii) auditing can use soft flow state, which does not   require route pinning.   There is a long standing argument over units of congestion: bytes vs   packets (see [RFC7141] and its references).Section 4.6 explains why   this problem must be addressed carefully.  However, this document   does not take a strong position on this issue.  Nonetheless, it does   require that the units of congestion must be an explicitly stated   property of any proposed encoding, and the consequences of that   design decision must be evaluated along with other aspects of the   design.   To be successful, the ConEx protocol needs to have the property that   the relevant stakeholders each have the incentive to unilaterally   start on each stage of partial deployment, which in turn createsMathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 5]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   incentives for further deployment.  Furthermore, legacy systems that   will never be upgraded do not become a barrier to deploying ConEx.   Issues relating to partial deployment are described inSection 6.   Note that ConEx Signals are not intended to be used for fine-grained   congestion control.  They are anticipated to be most useful at longer   time scales and/or at coarser granularity than single microflows.   For example, the total congestion caused by a user might serve as an   input to higher-level policy or accountability functions designed to   create incentives for improving user behavior, such as choosing to   send large quantities of data at off-peak times, at lower data rates,   or with less aggressive protocols such as Low Extra Delay Background   Transport (LEDBAT) [RFC6817]; see [RFC6789].   Ultimately, ConEx Signals have the potential to provide a mechanism   to regulate global Internet congestion.  From the earliest days of   research on congestion control, there has been a concern that there   is no mechanism to prevent transport designers from incrementally   making protocols more aggressive without bound and spiraling to a   "tragedy of the commons" Internet congestion collapse.  The "TCP   friendly" paradigm was created in part to forestall this failure.   However, it no longer commands any authority because it has little to   say about the Internet of today, which has moved beyond the scaling   range of standard TCP.  As a consequence, many transports and   applications are opening arbitrarily large numbers of connections or   using arbitrary levels of aggressiveness.  ConEx represents a   recognition that the IETF cannot regulate this space directly because   it concerns the behaviour of users and applications, not individual   transport protocols.  Instead, the IETF can give network operators   the protocol tools to arbitrate the space themselves with better bulk   traffic management.  This, in turn, should create incentives for   users and designers of applications and of transport protocols to be   more mindful about contributing to congestion.2.1.  Terminology   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this   document are to be interpreted as described inRFC 2119 [RFC2119].   ConEx Signals in IP packet headers from the sender to the network:   Not-ConEx:  The transport (or at least this packet) is not using      ConEx.   ConEx-Capable:  The transport is using ConEx.  This is the opposite      of Not-ConEx.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 6]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   ConEx Signal:  A signal in a packet sent by a ConEx-capable      transport.  It carries at least one of the following signals:      Re-Echo-Loss:  The transport has experienced a loss.      Re-Echo-ECN:  The transport has detected an ECN Congestion         Experienced (CE) mark.      Credit:  The transport is building up credit to signal advance         notice of the risk of packets contributing to congestion, in         contrast to signalling only after inherently delayed feedback         of actual congestion.      ConEx-Not-Marked:  The transport is ConEx-capable but is not         signaling Re-Echo-Loss, Re-Echo-ECN, or Credit.   ConEx-Marked:  At least one of Re-Echo-Loss, Re-Echo-ECN, or Credit.   ConEx-Re-Echo:  At least one of Re-Echo-Loss or Re-Echo-ECN.3.  Requirements for the ConEx Abstract Mechanism   First-time readers may wish to skim this section, since it is more   understandable having read the entire document.3.1.  Requirements for ConEx Signals   Ideally, all the following requirements would be met by a Congestion   Exposure Signal:   a.  The ConEx Signal SHOULD be visible to internetwork-layer devices       along the entire path from the transport sender to the transport       receiver.  Equivalently, it SHOULD be present in the IPv4 or IPv6       header and in the outermost IP header if using IP-in-IP       tunneling.  It MAY need to be visible if other encapsulating       headers are used to interconnect networks.  The ConEx Signal       SHOULD be immutable once set by the transport sender.  A       corollary of these requirements is that the chosen ConEx encoding       SHOULD pass silently without modification through preexisting       networking gear.   b.  The ConEx Signal SHOULD be useful under only partial deployment.       A minimal deployment SHOULD only require changes to transport       senders.  Furthermore, partial deployment SHOULD create       incentives for additional deployment, both in terms of enabling       ConEx on more devices and adding richer features to existing       devices.  Nonetheless, ConEx deployment need never be universal,Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 7]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015       and it is anticipated that some hosts and some transports may       never support the ConEx protocol and some networks may never use       the ConEx Signals.   c.  The ConEx Signal SHOULD be timely.  There will be a minimum delay       of one RTT and often longer if the transport protocol sends       infrequent feedback (consider Real-time Transport Control       Protocol (RTCP) [RFC3550] [RFC6679], for example).   d.  The ConEx Signal SHOULD be accurate and auditable.  The general       approach for auditing is to observe the volume of congestion       signals and ConEx Signals on the forward data path and verify       that the ConEx Signals do not underrepresent the congestion       signals (seeSection 5.5).   e.  The ConEx Signals for packet loss and ECN marking SHOULD have       distinct encodings because they are likely to require different       auditing techniques.   f.  Additionally, there SHOULD be an auditable ConEx Credit signal.       A sender can use Credit to indicate potential future congestion,       for example, as is often seen during startup.  ConEx Credit is       intended to overestimate congestion actually experienced across       the network.   It is already known that implementing ConEx Signals is likely to   entail some compromises, and therefore, all the requirements above   are expressed with the keyword "SHOULD" rather than "MUST".  The only   mandatory requirement is that a concrete protocol description MUST   give sound reasoning if it chooses not to meet some requirement.3.2.  Constraints on the Audit Function   The role of the audit function and constraints on it are described inSection 5.5.  There is no intention to standardise the audit   function.  However, it is necessary to lay down the following   normative constraints on audit behaviour so that transport designers   will know what to design against and implementers of audit devices   will know what pitfalls to avoid:   Minimal False Hits:  Audit SHOULD introduce minimal false hits for      honest flows.   Minimal False Misses:  Audit SHOULD quickly detect and sanction      dishonest flows, ideally on the first dishonest packet.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 8]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   Transport Oblivious:  Audit SHOULD NOT be designed around one      particular rate response, such as any particular TCP congestion      control algorithm or one particular resource-sharing regime such      as TCP friendliness [RFC5348].  An important goal is to give      ingress networks the freedom to unilaterally allow different rate      responses to congestion and different resource sharing regimes      [Evol_cc] without having to coordinate with other networks over      details of individual flow behaviour.   Sufficient Sanction:  Audit SHOULD introduce sufficient sanction      (e.g., loss in goodput) such that senders cannot gain from      understating congestion.   Proportionate Sanction:  To the extent that the audit might be      subject to false hits, the sanction SHOULD be proportionate to the      degree to which congestion is understated.  If the audit over-      punishes, attackers will find ways to harness it into amplifying      attacks on others.  Ideally the audit should, in the long run,      cause the user to get no better performance than they would get by      being accurate.   Manage Memory Exhaustion:  Audit SHOULD be able to counter state-      exhaustion attacks.  For instance, if the audit function uses flow      state, it should not be possible for senders to exhaust its memory      capacity by gratuitously sending numerous packets, each with a      different flow ID.   Identifier Accountability:  Audit SHOULD NOT be vulnerable to      'identity whitewashing', where a transport can label a flow with a      new ID more cheaply than paying the cost of continuing to use its      current ID [CheapPseud].3.3.  Requirements for Non-abstract ConEx Specifications   An experimental ConEx specification SHOULD describe the following   protocol details:   Network Layer:      A.  the specific ConEx Signal encodings with packet formats, bit          fields, and/or codepoints;      B.  an inventory of invalid combinations of flags or invalid          codepoints in the encoding, as well as whether security          gateways should normalise, discard, or ignore such invalid          encodings, and what values they should be considered          equivalent to by ConEx-aware elements;Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                     [Page 9]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015      C.  an inventory of any conflated signals or any other effects          that are known to compromise signal integrity;      D.  whether the source is responsible for allowing for the round-          trip delay in ConEx Signals (e.g., using a Credit marking),          and if so, whether Credit is maintained for the duration of a          flow or degrades over time, and what defines the end of the          duration of a flow;      E.  a specification for signal units (bytes vs. packets, etc.),          any approximations allowed, and the algorithms to do any          implied conversions or accounting;      F.  if the units are bytes, a definition of which headers are          included in the size of the packet;      G.  how tunnels should propagate the ConEx encoding;      H.  whether the encoding fields are mutable or not, to ensure that          header authentication, checksum calculation, etc., process          them correctly; a ConEx encoding field SHOULD be immutable          end-to-end, then endpoints can detect if it has been tampered          with in transit;      I.  if a specific encoding allows mutability (e.g., at proxies),          then an inventory of invalid transitions between codepoints;          in all encodings, transitions from any ConEx marking to Not-          ConEx MUST be invalid;      J.  a statement that the ConEx encoding is only applicable to          unicast and anycast and that forwarding elements should          silently ignore any ConEx signalling on multicast packets          (they should be forwarded unchanged);      K.  the definition of any extensibility;      L.  backward and forward compatibility and potential migration          strategies; in all cases, a ConEx encoding MUST be arranged so          that legacy transport senders implicitly send Not-ConEx;      M.  any (optional) modification to data-plane forwarding dependent          on the encoding (e.g., preferential discard, interaction with          Diffserv, ECN, etc.); and      N.  any warning or error messages relevant to the encoding.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 10]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015      Note regarding item J on multicast: A multicast tree may involve      different levels of congestion on each leg.  Any traffic      management can only monitor or control multicast congestion at or      near each receiver.  It would make no sense for the sender to try      to expose "whole-path congestion" in sent packets because it      cannot hope to describe all the differing congestion levels on      every leg of the tree.   Transport Layer:      A.  a specification of any required changes to congestion feedback          in particular transport protocols;      B.  a specification (or, minimally, a recommendation) for how a          transport should estimate credits at the beginning of a          connection and while it is in progress;      C.  a specification of whether any other protocol options should          (or must) be enabled along with an implementation of ConEx          (e.g., at least attempting to negotiate ECN and Selective          Acknowledgement (SACK) capability);      D.  a specification of any configuration that a ConEx stack may          require (or, preferably, confirmation that it requires no          configuration); and      E.  a specification of the statistics that a protocol stack should          log for each type of marking on a per-flow or aggregate basis.   Security:      A.  an example of a strong audit algorithm suitable for detecting          if a single flow is misstating congestion; this algorithm          should present minimal false results but need not have optimal          scaling properties (e.g., may need per-flow state).      B.  an example of an audit algorithm suitable for detecting          misstated congestion in a large aggregate (e.g., no per-flow          state).      C.  a definition of the level of ConEx-Re-Echo and ConEx-Credit          signals that will be sufficient to pass audit (seeSection 5.5).   The possibility exists that these specifications overconstrain the   ConEx design and can not be fully satisfied.  An important part of   the evaluation of any particular design will be a thorough inventory   of all ways in which it might fail to satisfy these specifications.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 11]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 20154.  Encoding Congestion Exposure   Most protocol specifications start with a description of packet   formats and codepoints with their associated meanings.  This document   does not: It is already known that choosing the encoding for ConEx is   likely to entail some engineering compromises that have the potential   to reduce the protocol's usefulness in some settings.  For instance,   the experimental ConEx encoding chosen for IPv6 [CONEX-DESTOPT] had   to make compromises on tunnelling.  Rather than making these   engineering choices prematurely, this document sidesteps the encoding   problem by making it abstract.  It describes several different   representations of ConEx Signals, none of which are specified to the   level of specific bits or codepoints.   The goal of this approach is to be as complete as possible for   discovering the potential usage and capabilities of the ConEx   protocol, so we have some hope of making optimal design decisions   when choosing the encoding.  Even if experiments reveal particular   problems due to the encoding, then this document will still serve as   a reference model.4.1.  Naive Encoding   For tutorial purposes, it is helpful to describe a naive encoding of   the ConEx protocol for TCP and similar protocols: set a bit (not   specified here) in the IP header on each retransmission and on each   ECN-signalled window reduction.  Network devices along the forward   path can see this bit and act on it.  For example, any device along   the path might limit the rate of all traffic if the rate of marked   (congested) packets exceeds a threshold.   This simple encoding is sufficient to illustrate many of the benefits   envisioned for ConEx.  At first glance, it looks like it might   motivate people to deploy and use it.  It is a one-line code change   that a small number of OS developers and content providers could   unilaterally deploy across a significant fraction of all Internet   traffic.  However, this encoding does not support auditing so it   would also motivate users and/or applications to misrepresent the   congestion that they are causing [RFC3514].  As a consequence, the   naive encoding is not likely to be trusted and thus creates its own   disincentives for deployment.   Nonetheless, this Naive encoding does present a clear mental model of   how the ConEx protocol might function under various uses.  It is   useful for thought experiments where it can be stipulated that all   participants are honest and it does illustrate some of the incentives   that might be introduced by ConEx.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 12]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 20154.2.  Null Encoding   In limited contexts, it is possible to implement ConEx-like functions   without any signals at all by measuring rest-of-path congestion   directly from TCP headers.  The algorithm is to keep at least one RTT   of past TCP headers and match each new header against the history to   count duplicate data.   This could implement many ConEx policies, without any explicit   protocol.  It is fairly easy to implement, at least at low rate   (e.g., in a software-based edge router).  However, it would only be   useful in cases where the network operator can see the TCP headers.   At the time of writing (2014), those cases are the majority of   traffic because UDP, IPsec, and VPN tunnels are used far less than   Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) over   TCP/IP, which do not hide TCP sequence numbers from network devices.   However, anyone specifically intending to avoid the attention of a   congestion policy device would only have to hide their TCP headers   from the network operator (e.g., by using a VPN tunnel).4.3.  ECN-Based Encoding   The re-ECN specification [RE-ECN-TCP] presents an encoding of ConEx   in IPv4 and IPv6 that was tightly integrated with ECN encoding in   order to fit into the IPv4 header.  Any individual packet may need to   represent any ECN codepoint and any ConEx Signal value independently.   So, ideally, their encoding should be entirely independent.  However,   given the limited number of header bits and/or codepoints, re-ECN   chooses to partially share codepoints and to re-echo both losses and   ECN with just one codepoint.   The central theme of the re-ECN work is an audit mechanism that   provides sufficient disincentives against misrepresenting congestion   [RE-ECN-MOTIVATION].  It is analyzed extensively in Briscoe's PhD   dissertation [Refb-dis].  For a tutorial background on re-ECN   motivation and techniques, see [Re-fb] and [FairerFaster].   Re-ECN is an example of one chosen set of compromises attempting to   meet the requirements ofSection 3.  The present document takes a   step back, aiming to state the ideal requirements in order to allow   the Internet community to assess whether different compromises might   be better.   The problem with re-ECN is that it requires that receivers be ECN   enabled in addition to sender changes.  Newer encodings   [CONEX-DESTOPT] overcome this problem by being able to represent loss   and ECN-based congestion separately.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 13]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 20154.4.  Independent Bits   This encoding involves flag bits, each of which the sender can set   independently to indicate to the network one of the following four   signals:   ConEx (Not-ConEx):  The transport is (or is not) using ConEx with      this packet (network-layer encoding requirement L inSection 3.3      says the protocol must be arranged so that legacy transport      senders implicitly send Not-ConEx).   Re-Echo-Loss (Not-Re-Echo-Loss):  The transport has (or has not)      experienced a loss.   Re-Echo-ECN (Not-Re-Echo-ECN):  The transport has (or has not)      experienced ECN-signalled congestion.   Credit (Not-Credit):  The transport is (or is not) building up      congestion credit (seeSection 5.5 on the audit function).   A packet with ConEx set, combined with all the three other flags   cleared, implies ConEx-Not-Marked.   This encoding does not imply any exclusion property among the   signals.  Multiple types of congestion (ECN, loss) can be signalled   on the same ACK.  So, ideally, a ConEx sender would be able to   reflect these in the next packet.  However, there will be many   invalid combinations of flags (e.g., Not-ConEx combined with any of   the ConEx-Marked flags), which a malicious sender could use to   advantage against naive policy devices that only check each flag   separately.   As long as the packets in a flow have uniform sizes, it does not   matter whether the units of congestion are packets or bytes.   However, if an application sends very irregular packet sizes, it may   be necessary for the sender to mark multiple packets to avoid being   in technical violation of an audit function measuring in bytes (seeSection 4.6).4.5.  Codepoint Encoding   This encoding involves signaling one of the following five   codepoints:   ENUM {Not-ConEx, ConEx-Not-Marked, Re-Echo-Loss, Re-Echo-ECN, Credit}Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 14]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   Each named codepoint has the same meaning as in the encoding using   independent bits in the previous section.  The use of any one   codepoint implies the negative of all the others.   Inherently, the semantics of most of the enumerated codepoints are   mutually exclusive.  'Credit' is the only one that might need to be   used in combination with either Re-Echo-Loss or Re-Echo-ECN, but even   that requirement is questionable.  It must not be forgotten that the   enumerated encoding loses the flexibility to signal these two   combinations, whereas the encoding with four independent bits is not   so limited.  Alternatively, two extra codepoints could be assigned to   these two combinations of semantics.  The comment in the previous   section about units also applies.4.6.  Units Implied by an Encoding   The following comments apply generally to all the other encodings.   Congestion can be due to exhaustion of bit-carrying capacity or   exhaustion of packet-processing power.  When a packet is discarded or   marked to indicate congestion, there is no easy way to know whether   the lost or marked packet signifies bit congestion or packet   congestion.  The above ConEx encodings that rely on marking packets   suffer from the same ambiguity.   This problem is most acute when audit needs to check that one count   of markings matches another.  For example, if there are ConEx   markings on three large (1500 B) packets, is that sufficient to match   the loss of five small (60 B) packets?  If a packet marking is   defined to mean all the bytes in the packet are marked, then we have   4500 B of ConEx-Marked data against 300 B of lost data, which is   easily sufficient.  If instead we are counting packets, then we have   three ConEx packets against five lost packets, which is not   sufficient.  This problem will not arise when all the packets in a   flow are the same size, but a choice needs to be made for flows in   which packet sizes vary, such as BGP, SPDY, and some variable-rate   video encoding schemes.   Whether to use bytes or packets is not obvious.  For instance, the   most expensive links in the Internet, in terms of cost per bit, are   all at lower data rates, where transmission times are large and   packet sizes are important.  In order for a policy to consider wire   time, it needs to know the number of congested bytes.  However, high   speed networking equipment and the transport protocols themselves   sometimes gauge resource consumption and congestion in terms of   packets.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 15]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   [RFC7141] advises that congestion indications should be interpreted   in units of bytes when responding to congestion, at least on today's   Internet.  [RFC6789] takes the same view in its definition of   congestion-volume, again, for today's Internet.   In any TCP implementation, this is simple to achieve for varying size   packets given that TCP SACK tracks losses in bytes.  If an encoding   is specified in units of bytes, the encoding should also specify   which headers to include in the size of a packet (see network-layer   requirement F inSection 3.3).RFC 7141 constructs an argument for why equipment tends to be built   so that the bottleneck will be the bit-carrying capacity of its   interfaces, not its packet-processing capacity.  However,RFC 7141   acknowledges that the position may change in future and notes that   new techniques will need to be developed to distinguish packet and   bit congestion.   Given this document describes an abstract ConEx mechanism, it is   intended to be timeless.  Therefore, it does not take a strong   position on this issue.  However, a ConEx encoding will need to   explicitly specify whether it assumes units of bytes or packets   consistently for both congestion indications and ConEx markings (see   network-layer requirement E inSection 3.3).  It may help to refer to   the guidance in [RFC7141].5.  Congestion Exposure Components   The components shown in Figure 1 as well as policy and audit are   described in more detail.5.1.  Network Devices (Not Modified)   Congestion signals originate from network devices as they do today.   A congested router, switch, or other network device can discard or   ECN-mark packets when it is congested.5.2.  Modified Senders   The sending transport needs to be modified to send Congestion   Exposure signals in response to congestion feedback signals (e.g.,   for the case of a TCP transport, see [TCP-MODIFICATION]).  We want to   permit ConEx without ECN (e.g., if the receiver does not support   ECN).  However, we want to encourage a ConEx sender to at least   attempt to negotiate ECN (a ConEx transport protocol specification   may require this) because it is believed that ConEx without ECN is   harder to audit and thus potentially exposed to cheating.  Since   honest users have the potential to benefit from stronger mechanismsMathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 16]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   to manage traffic, they have an incentive to deploy ConEx and ECN   together.  This incentive is not sufficient to prevent a dishonest   user from constructing (or configuring) a sender that enables ConEx   after choosing not to negotiate ECN, but it should be sufficient to   prevent this from being the sustained default case for any   significant pool of users.   Permitting ConEx without ECN is necessary to facilitate bootstrapping   other parts of ConEx deployment.5.3.  Receivers (Optionally Modified)   Any receiving transport may already feedback sufficiently useful   signals to the sender so that it does not need to be altered.   The native loss or ECN signaling mechanism required for compliance   with existing congestion control standards (e.g., RTCP, Stream   Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)) will typically be sufficient   for the Sender to generate ConEx Signals.   TCP's loss feedback is sufficient for ConEx if SACK is used   [RFC2018].  However, the original specification for ECN in TCP   [RFC3168] signals congestion no more than once per round trip.  The   sender may require more precise feedback from the receiver otherwise   it is at risk of appearing to be understating its ConEx Signals.   Ideally, ConEx should be added to a transport like TCP without   mandatory modifications to the receiver.  But in the TCP-ECN case, an   optional modification to the receiver could be recommended for   precision (see [RFC7560], which is based on the approach originally   taken when adding re-ECN to TCP [RE-ECN-TCP]).5.4.  Policy Devices   Policy devices are characterised by a need to be configured with a   policy related to the users or neighboring networks being served.  In   contrast, auditing devices solely enforce compliance with the ConEx   protocol and do not need to be configured with any client-specific   policy.   One of the design goals of the ConEx protocol is that none of the   important policy mechanisms requires per-flow state and that policy   mechanisms can even be implemented for heavily aggregated traffic in   the core of the Internet with complexity akin to accumulating marking   volumes per logical link.  Of course, policy mechanisms may sometimes   choose to focus down on individual flows, but ConEx aims to make   aggregate policy devices feasible.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 17]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 20155.4.1.  Congestion Monitoring Devices   Policy devices can typically be decomposed into two functions:   i) monitoring the ConEx Signal to compare it with a policy; then ii)   acting in some way on the result.  Various actions might be invoked   against 'out of contract' traffic, such as policing (seeSection 5.4.3), re-routing, or downgrading the class of service.   Alternatively, a policy device might not act directly on the traffic,   but instead report to management systems that are designed to control   congestion indirectly.  For instance, the reports might trigger   capacity upgrades, penalty clauses in contracts, levy charges based   on congestion, or merely send warnings to clients who are causing   excessive congestion.   Nonetheless, whatever action is invoked, the congestion monitoring   function will always be a necessary part of any policy device.5.4.2.  Rest-of-Path Congestion Monitoring   ConEx Signals indicate the level of congestion along a whole path   from source to destination.  In contrast, ECN signals monitored in   the middle of a network indicate the level of congestion experienced   so far on the path (of course, only in ECN-capable traffic).   If a monitor in the middle of a network (e.g., at a network border)   measures both of these signals, it can subtract the level of ECN   (path so far) from the level of ConEx (whole path) to derive a   measure of the congestion that packets are likely to experience   between the monitoring point and their destination (rest-of-path   congestion).   It will often be preferable for policy devices to monitor rest-of-   path congestion if they can, because it is a measure of the   downstream congestion that the policy device can directly influence   by controlling the traffic passing through it.5.4.3.  Congestion Policers   A congestion policer can be implemented in a very similar way to a   bit-rate policer, but its effect can be focused solely on traffic of   users causing congestion downstream, which ConEx Signals make   visible.  Without ConEx Signals, the only way to mitigate congestion   is to blindly limit the traffic bit-rate on the assumption that high   bit-rate is more likely to cause congestion.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 18]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   A congestion policer monitors all ConEx traffic entering a network or   some identifiable subset.  Using ConEx Signals and/or Credit signals   (and preferably subtracting ECN signals to yield rest-of-path   congestion), it measures the amount of congestion that this traffic   is contributing somewhere downstream.  If this persistently exceeds a   policy-configured 'congestion-bit-rate', the congestion policer can   limit all the monitored ConEx traffic.   A congestion policer can be implemented by a simple token bucket   applied to an aggregate.  But unlike a bit-rate policer, it removes   tokens only when it forwards packets that are ConEx-Marked,   effectively treating Not-ConEx-Marked packets as invisible.   Consequently, because tokens give the right to send congested bits,   the fill rate of the token bucket will represent the allowed   congestion-bit-rate.  This should provide sufficient traffic   management without having to additionally constrain the straight bit-   rate at all.  See [ISOLATION-POLICING] for details.   Note that the policing action could be to introduce a throttle   (discard some traffic) immediately upstream of the congestion   monitor.  Alternatively, this throttle could introduce delay using a   queue with its own AQM, which potentially increases the whole path   congestion.  In effect, the congestion policer has moved the   congestion earlier in the path and focused it on one user to protect   downstream resources by reducing the congestion in the rest of the   path.5.5.  Audit   The most critical aspect of ConEx is the capability to support robust   auditing.  It can be assumed that sanctions based on ConEx Signals   will create an intrinsic motivation for users to understate the   congestion that they are causing.  So, without strong audit   functions, the ConEx Signal would become understated to the point of   being useless.  Therefore, the most important feature of an encoding   design is likely to be the robustness of the auditing it supports.   The general goal of an auditor is to make sure that any ConEx-enabled   traffic is sent with sufficient ConEx-Re-Echo and ConEx-Credit   signals.  A concrete definition of the ConEx protocol MUST define   what sufficient means.   If a ConEx-enabled transport does not carry sufficient ConEx Signals,   then an auditor is likely to apply some sanction to that traffic.   Although sanctions are beyond the scope of this document, an example   sanction might be to throttle the traffic immediately upstream of theMathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 19]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   auditor to prevent the user from getting any advantage by   understating congestion.  Such a throttle would likely include some   combination of delaying or dropping traffic.   A ConEx auditor might use one of the following techniques:   Generic loss auditing:  For congestion signalled by loss, totally      accurate auditing is not believed to be possible in the general      case because it involves a network node detecting the absence of      some packets when it cannot always necessarily identify      retransmissions or missing packets.  The missing packet might      simply be taking a different route, or the IP payload may be      encrypted.      It is for this reason that it is desirable to motivate the      deploying of ECN, even though ECN is not strictly required for      ConEx.   ECN auditing:  Directly observe and compare the volume of ECN and      ConEx marks.  Since the volume of ECN marks rises monotonically      along a path, ECN auditing is most accurate when located near the      transport receiver.  For this reason, ECN should be monitored      downstream of the predominant bottleneck.   TCP-specific loss auditing:  For non-encrypted standard TCP traffic      on a single path, a tactical audit approach could be to measure      losses by detecting retransmissions, which appear as duplicate      sequence numbers upstream of the loss and out of order data      downstream of the loss.  Since some reordering is present in the      Internet, such a loss estimator would be most accurate near the      sender.  Such an audit device should treat non-ECN-capable packets      with encrypted IP payload as Not-ConEx, even if they claim to be      ConEx-capable, unless the operator is also using one of the other      two techniques below that can audit such packets against losses.   Predominant bottleneck loss auditing:  For networks designed so that      losses predominantly occur under the control of one IP-aware      bottleneck node on the path, the auditor could be located at this      bottleneck.  It could simply compare ConEx Signals with actual      local packet discards (and ECN marks).  This is a good model for      most consumer access networks where audit accuracy could well be      sufficient even if losses occasionally occur elsewhere in the      network.      Although the auditor at the predominant bottleneck would not be      able to count losses at other nodes, transports would not know      where losses were occurring either.  Therefore, a transport wouldMathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 20]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015      not know which losses it could cheat and which ones it couldn't      without getting caught.   ECN tunnel loss auditing:  A network operator can arrange IP-in-IP      tunnels (or IP-in-MPLS, etc.) so that any losses within the      tunnels are deferred until the tunnel egress.  Then, the audit      function can be deployed at the egress and be aware of all losses.      This is possible by enabling ECN marking on switches and routers      within a tunnel, irrespective of whether end systems support ECN,      by exploiting a side effect of the way tunnels handle the ECN      field.  After encapsulation at the tunnel ingress, the network      should arrange for any non-ECN packets (with '00' in the ECN field      of the outer) to be set to the ECN-capable transport (ECT(0))      codepoint.  Then, if they experience congestion at one of the ECN-      capable switches or routers within the tunnel, some will be ECN-      marked rather than immediately dropped.  However, when the tunnel      decapsulator strips the outer from such an ECN-marked packet, if      it finds the inner header has '00' in the ECN field (meaning that      the endpoints do not support ECN), it will automatically drop the      packet, assuming it complies with [RFC6040].  Thus, an audit      function at the decapsulator can know which packets would have      been dropped within the tunnel (and even which are genuinely ECN-      marked for the end-to-end protocol).  Non-ECN end systems outside      the tunnel see no sign of the use of ECN internally.   In addition, other audit techniques may be identified in the future.   [Refb-dis] gives a comprehensive inventory of attacks against audit   proposed by various people.  It includes pseudocode for both   deterministic and statistical audit functions designed to thwart   these attacks and analyses the effectiveness of an implementation.   Although this work is specific to the re-ECN protocol, most of the   material is useful for designing and assessing audit of other   specific ConEx encodings, against both ECN and loss.   The auditing function should be able to trigger sufficient sanction   to discourage understating congestion [Salvatori05].  This seems to   require designing the sanction in concert with the policy functions,   even though they might be implemented in different parts of the   network.  However, [Refb-dis] proves audit and policy functions can   be independent as long as audit drops sufficient traffic to   'normalise' actual congestion signals to be no greater than ConEx   Signals.   Similarly, the job of incentivising the sending of ConEx-enabled   packets is proper solely to policy devices independent of the audit   function.  The audit function's job is policy neutral, so it should   be solely confined to checking for correctness within those packetsMathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 21]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   that have been marked as ConEx-capable.  Even if there are Not-ConEx   packets mixed with ConEx packets within a flow, audit will not need   to monitor any Not-ConEx packets.   Note that in the future it might prove to be desirable to provide   advice on uniformly implementing sanctions, because otherwise   insufficient sanctions could impair the ability to implement policy   elsewhere in the network.   Some of the audit algorithms require per-flow state.  This cost is   expected to be tolerable because these techniques are most apropos   near the edges of the network where traffic is generally much less   aggregated so the state need not overwhelm any one device.  The flow   state required for the audit creates itself as it detects new flows.   Therefore, a flow will not fail if it is re-routed away from the   audit box currently holding its flow state, so auditing does not   require route pinning and works fine with multipath flows.   Holding flow state seems to create a vulnerability to attacks that   exhaust the auditor's memory by opening numerous new short flows.   The audit function can protect itself from this attack by not   allocating new flow state unless a ConEx-Marked packet arrives (e.g.,   credit at the start of a flow).  Because policy devices rate limit   ConEx-Marked packets, this sets a natural limit to the rate at which   a source can create flow state in audit devices.  The auditor would   treat all the remaining flows without any ConEx-Marked packets as a   single misbehaving aggregate.   Auditing can be distributed and redundant.  One flow may be audited   in multiple places, using multiple techniques.  Some audit techniques   do not require any per-flow state and can be applied to aggregate   traffic.  These might be able to detect the presence of understated   congestion at large scale and support recursively hunting for   individual flows that are understating their congestion.  Even at   large scales, flows can be randomly selected for individual auditing.   Sampling techniques can also be used to bound the total auditing   memory footprint, although the implementer needs to counter the   tactic where a source cheats until caught by sampling, then simply   discards that flow ID and starts cheating with a new one (termed   'identifier whitewashing when caught').   For the concrete ConEx protocol encoding defined in [CONEX-DESTOPT],   ConEx Credit and ConEx-Re-Echo signals are intended to be audited   separately.  The Credit signal can be audited directly against actual   congestion (loss and ECN).  However, there will be an inherent delay   of at least one round trip between a congestion signal and the   subsequent ConEx-Re-Echo signal it triggers, as shown in Figure 1.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 22]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   Therefore, ConEx-Re-Echo signals will need to be audited with some   allowance for this delay.  Further discussion of design and   implementation choices for functions intended to audit this concrete   ConEx encoding can be found in [CONEX-AUDIT].6.  Support for Incremental Deployment   The ConEx abstract protocol described so far is intended to support   incremental deployment in every possible respect.  For convenience,   the following list collects together all the features that support   incremental deployment in the concrete ConEx specifications and   points to further information on each:   Packets:  The wire protocol encoding allows each packet to indicate      whether it is using ConEx or not (seeSection 4 on      Encoding Congestion Exposure).   Senders:  ConEx requires a modification to the source in order to      send ConEx packet markings (seeSection 5.2).  Although ConEx      support can be indicated on a packet-by-packet basis, it is likely      that all the packets in a flow will either consistently support      ConEx or consistently not.  It is also likely that, if the      implementation of a transport protocol supports ConEx, all the      packets sent from that host using that protocol will be ConEx-      Capable.      The implementations of some of the transport protocols on a host      might not support ConEx (e.g., the implementation of DNS over UDP      might not support ConEx, while perhaps RTP over UDP and TCP will).      Any non-upgraded transports and non-upgraded hosts will simply      continue to send regular Not-ConEx packets as always.      A network operator can create incentives for senders to      voluntarily reveal ConEx information (see the item on incremental      deployment by 'Networks' below).   Receivers:  A ConEx source should be able to work with the regular      receiver for the transport in question without requiring any      ConEx-specific modifications.  This is true for modern transport      protocols (RTCP, SCTP, etc.) and it is even true for TCP, as long      as the receiver supports SACK, which is widely deployed anyway.      However, it is not true for ECN feedback in TCP.  The need for      more precise ECN feedback in TCP is not exclusive to ConEx; for      instance, Data Centre TCP [DCTCP] uses precise feedback to good      effect.  Therefore, if a receiver offers precise feedback,      [RFC7560] it will be best if ConEx uses it (seeSection 5.3).Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 23]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015      Alternatively, without sufficiently precise congestion feedback      from the receiver, the source may have to conservatively send      extra ConEx markings in order to avoid understating congestion.   Proxies:  Although it was stated above that ConEx requires a      modification to the source, ConEx Signals could theoretically be      introduced by a proxy for the source as long as it can intercept      feedback from the receiver.  Similarly, more precise feedback      could theoretically be provided by a proxy for the receiver rather      than modifying the receiver itself.   Forwarding:  No modification to forwarding or queuing is needed for      ConEx.      However, once some ConEx is deployed, it is possible that a queue      implementation could optionally take advantage of the ConEx      information in packets.  For instance, it has been suggested      [CONEX-DESTOPT] that a queue would be more robust against flooding      if it preferentially discarded Not-ConEx packets then Not-Marked      ConEx packets.      A ConEx sender re-echoes congestion whether the queues signaling      congestion are ECN enabled or not.  Nonetheless, an operator      relying on ConEx Signals is recommended to enable ECN in queues      wherever possible.  This is because auditing works best if most      congestion is indicated by ECN rather than loss (seeSection 3).      Also, monitoring rest-of-path congestion is not accurate if there      are congested non-ECN queues upstream of the monitoring point      (Section 5.4.2).   Networks:  If a subset of traffic sources (or proxies) use ConEx      Signals to reveal congestion in the internetwork layer, a network      operator can choose (or not) to use this information for traffic      management.  As long as the end-to-end ConEx Signals are present,      each network can unilaterally choose to use them -- independently      of whether other networks do.      ConEx marked packets may safely traverse a network that ignores      them.  ConEx Signals are defined to remain unchanged once set by      the sender, but some encodings may allow changes in transit (e.g.,      by proxies).  In no circumstances will a network node change      ConEx-Capable packets to Not-ConEx (network-layer encoding      requirement I inSection 3.3).  If necessary, endpoints should be      able to detect if a network is removing ConEx Signals (network-      layer encoding requirement H inSection 3.3).Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 24]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015      An operator can deploy policy devices (Section 5.4) wherever      traffic enters its network in order to monitor the downstream      congestion that incoming traffic contributes to and control it if      necessary.  A network operator can create incentives for the      developers of sending applications and transports to voluntarily      reveal ConEx information.  Without ConEx information, a network      operator tends to have to limit the bit-rate or volume from a site      more than is necessary, just in case it might congest others.      With ConEx information, the operator can solely limit congestion-      causing traffic and otherwise allow complete freedom.  This      greater freedom acts as an inducement for the source to volunteer      ConEx information.  An operator may also monitor whether a source      transport has sent ConEx packets and treat the same transport with      greater suspicion (e.g., a more stringent rate limit) whenever it      selectively sends packets without ConEx support.  See [RFC6789]      for further discussion of deployment incentives for networks and      references to scenarios where some networks use ConEx-based policy      devices and others don't.      An operator can deploy audit devices (Section 5.5) unilaterally      within its own network to verify that traffic sources are not      understating ConEx information.  From the viewpoint of one network      operator (say N_a), it only cares that the level of ConEx      signaling is sufficient to cover congestion in its own network.      If traffic continues into a congested downstream network (say      N_b), it is of no concern to the first network (N_a) if the end-      to-end ConEx signaling is insufficient to cover the congestion in      N_b as well.  This is N_b's concern, and N_b can both detect such      anomalous traffic and deal with it using ConEx-based audit devices      itself.7.  Security Considerations   The only known risk associated with ConEx is that users and   applications are very likely to be motivated to underrepresent the   congestion that they are causing.  Significant portions of this   document are about mechanisms to audit the ConEx Signals and create   sufficient sanction to inhibit such underrepresentation.  In   particular, seeSection 5.5.   Security attacks and their defences are best discussed against a   concrete protocol specification, not the abstract mechanism of this   document.  A concrete ConEx protocol will need to be accompanied by a   document describing how the protocol and its audit mechanisms defend   against likely attacks.  [Refb-dis] will be a useful source for such   a document.  It gives a comprehensive inventory of attacks against   audit that have been proposed by various parties.  It includesMathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 25]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   pseudocode for both deterministic and statistical audit functions   designed to thwart these attacks and analyses the effectiveness of an   implementation.   However, [Refb-dis] is specific to the re-ECN protocol, which   signalled ECN and loss together, whereas the concrete ConEx protocol   defined in [CONEX-DESTOPT] signals them separately.  Therefore,   although likely attacks will be similar, there will be more   combinations of attacks to worry about, and defences and their   analysis are likely to be a little different for ConEx.   The main known attacks that a security document for a concrete ConEx   protocol will need to address are listed below and [Refb-dis] should   be referred to for how re-ECN was designed to defend against similar   attacks:   o  Attacks on the audit function (see Section 7.5 of [Refb-dis]):      Flow ID Whitewashing:  Designing the audit function so that a         source cannot gain from starting a new flow once audit has         detected cheating in a previous flow.      Dragging Down an Aggregate:  Avoiding audit discarding packets         from all flows within an aggregate, which would allow one flow         to pull down the average so that the audit function would         discard packets from all flows, not just the offending flow.      Dragging Down a Spoofed Flow ID:  An attacker understates ConEx         markings in packets that spoof another flow, which fools the         audit function into dropping the genuine user's packets.   o  Attacks by networks on other networks (see Section 8.2 of      [Refb-dis]):      Dummy Traffic:  Sending dummy traffic across a border with         understated ConEx markings to bring down the average ConEx         markings in the aggregate of border traffic.  This attack can         be combined with a TTL that expires before the packets reach an         audit function.      Signal Poisoning with 'Cancelled' Marking:  Sending high volumes         of valid packets that are both ConEx-Marked and ECN-marked,         which seems to represent congestion upstream, but it makes         these packets immune to being further ECN-marked downstream.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 26]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   It is planned to document all known attacks and their defences   (including all of the above) in the RFC series against a concrete   ConEx protocol specification.  In the interim, [Refb-dis] and its   references should be referred to for details and ways to address   these attacks in the case of re-ECN.8.  References8.1.  Normative References   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate              Requirement Levels",BCP 14,RFC 2119,              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.8.2.  Informative References   [CheapPseud]              Friedman, E. and P. Resnick, "The Social Cost of Cheap              Pseudonyms", Journal of Economics and Management Strategy,              Volume 10, Issue 2, pp. 173-199,              DOI 10.1111/j.1430-9134.2001.00173.x, Summer 2001.   [CONEX-AUDIT]              Wagner, D. and M. Kuehlewind, "Auditing of Congestion              Exposure (ConEx) signals", Work in Progress,draft-wagner-conex-audit-01, February 2014.   [CONEX-DESTOPT]              Krishnan, S., Kuehlewind, M., and C. Ucendo, "IPv6              Destination Option for Congestion Exposure (ConEx)", Work              in Progress,draft-ietf-conex-destopt-11, October 2015.   [DCTCP]    Alizadeh, M., Greenberg, A., Maltz, D., Padhye, J., Patel,              P., Prabhakar, B., Sengupta, S., and M. Sridharan, "Data              Center TCP (DCTCP)", ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication              Review, Volume 40, Issue 4, pages 63-74,              DOI 10.1145/1851182.1851192, October 2010,              <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1851192>.   [Evol_cc]  Gibbens, R. and F. Kelly, "Resource pricing and the              evolution of congestion control", Automatica, Volume 35,              Issue 12, pages 1969-1985,              DOI 10.1016/S0005-1098(99)00135-1, December 1999,              <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109899001351>.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 27]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   [FairerFaster]              Briscoe, B., "A Fairer, Faster Internet Protocol", IEEE              Spectrum, pages 38-43, DOI 10.1109/MSPEC.2008.4687368,              December 2008,              <http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/standards/a-fairer-faster-internet-protocol>.   [ISOLATION-POLICING]              Briscoe, B., "Network Performance Isolation using              Congestion Policing", Work in Progress,draft-briscoe-conex-policing-01, February 2014.   [RE-ECN-MOTIVATION]              Briscoe, B., Jacquet, A., Moncaster, T., and A. Smith,              "Re-ECN: A Framework for adding Congestion Accountability              to TCP/IP", Work in Progress,draft-briscoe-conex-re-ecn-motiv-03, March 2014.   [RE-ECN-TCP]              Briscoe, B., Jacquet, A., Moncaster, T., and A. Smith,              "Re-ECN: Adding Accountability for Causing Congestion to              TCP/IP", Work in Progress,draft-briscoe-conex-re-ecn-tcp-04, July 2014.   [Re-fb]    Briscoe, B., Jacquet, A., Di Cairano-Gilfedder, C.,              Salvatori, A., Soppera, A., and M. Koyabe, "Policing              Congestion Response in an Internetwork Using Re-Feedback",              ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume 35,              Issue 4, pages 277--288, DOI 10.1145/1090191.1080124,              August 2005,              <http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1080091.1080124>.   [Refb-dis] Briscoe, B., "Re-feedback: Freedom with Accountability for              Causing Congestion in a Connectionless Internetwork", PhD              Dissertation, University College London, May 2009,              <http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/16274/>.   [RFC2018]  Mathis, M., Mahdavi, J., Floyd, S., and A. Romanow, "TCP              Selective Acknowledgment Options",RFC 2018,              DOI 10.17487/RFC2018, October 1996,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2018>.   [RFC3168]  Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition              of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP",RFC 3168, DOI 10.17487/RFC3168, September 2001,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3168>.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 28]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   [RFC3514]  Bellovin, S., "The Security Flag in the IPv4 Header",RFC 3514, DOI 10.17487/RFC3514, April 2003,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3514>.   [RFC3550]  Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V.              Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time              Applications", STD 64,RFC 3550, DOI 10.17487/RFC3550,              July 2003, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3550>.   [RFC5348]  Floyd, S., Handley, M., Padhye, J., and J. Widmer, "TCP              Friendly Rate Control (TFRC): Protocol Specification",RFC 5348, DOI 10.17487/RFC5348, September 2008,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5348>.   [RFC5681]  Allman, M., Paxson, V., and E. Blanton, "TCP Congestion              Control",RFC 5681, DOI 10.17487/RFC5681, September 2009,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5681>.   [RFC6040]  Briscoe, B., "Tunnelling of Explicit Congestion              Notification",RFC 6040, DOI 10.17487/RFC6040, November              2010, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6040>.   [RFC6679]  Westerlund, M., Johansson, I., Perkins, C., O'Hanlon, P.,              and K. Carlberg, "Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)              for RTP over UDP",RFC 6679, DOI 10.17487/RFC6679, August              2012, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6679>.   [RFC6789]  Briscoe, B., Ed., Woundy, R., Ed., and A. Cooper, Ed.,              "Congestion Exposure (ConEx) Concepts and Use Cases",RFC 6789, DOI 10.17487/RFC6789, December 2012,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6789>.   [RFC6817]  Shalunov, S., Hazel, G., Iyengar, J., and M. Kuehlewind,              "Low Extra Delay Background Transport (LEDBAT)",RFC 6817,              DOI 10.17487/RFC6817, December 2012,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6817>.   [RFC7141]  Briscoe, B. and J. Manner, "Byte and Packet Congestion              Notification",BCP 41,RFC 7141, DOI 10.17487/RFC7141,              February 2014, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7141>.   [RFC7560]  Kuehlewind, M., Ed., Scheffenegger, R., and B. Briscoe,              "Problem Statement and Requirements for Increased Accuracy              in Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) Feedback",RFC 7560, DOI 10.17487/RFC7560, August 2015,              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7560>.Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 29]

RFC 7713          ConEx Concepts and Abstract Mechanism    December 2015   [Salvatori05]              Salvatori, A., "Closed Loop Traffic Policing", Politecnico              Torino and Institut Eurecom Masters Thesis, September              2005.   [TCP-MODIFICATION]              Kuehlewind, M. and R. Scheffenegger, "TCP modifications              for Congestion Exposure", Work in Progress,draft-ietf-conex-tcp-modifications-10, October 2015.Acknowledgments   This document was improved by review comments from Toby Moncaster,   Nandita Dukkipati, Mirja Kuehlewind, Caitlin Bestler, Marcelo Bagnulo   Braun, John Leslie, Ingemar Johansson, and David Wagner.   Bob Briscoe's work on this specification received part-funding from   the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under   the Trilogy 2 project, grant agreement no. 317756.  The views   expressed here are solely those of the authors.Authors' Addresses   Matt Mathis   Google, Inc.   1600 Amphitheater Parkway   Mountain View, California  93117   United States   Email: mattmathis@google.com   Bob Briscoe   BT (now at Simula Research Laboratory)   Email: ietf@bobbriscoe.net   URI:http://bobbriscoe.net/Mathis & Briscoe              Informational                    [Page 30]

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