One document matched: draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-12.xml
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Created: Mon Nov 18 17:55:22 2013 mstenber
split from draft-ietf-homenet-hncp-03-pre - generic parts
TODO:
- caption + title to figures? (gen-art review)
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<rfc
ipr='trust200902'
docName='draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-12'
category='std'
>
<front>
<title abbrev="Distributed Node Consensus Protocol">
Distributed Node Consensus Protocol
</title>
<author initials="M" surname="Stenberg" fullname="Markus Stenberg">
<organization>Independent</organization>
<address>
<postal>
<street/>
<city>Helsinki</city>
<code>00930</code>
<country>Finland</country>
</postal>
<email>markus.stenberg@iki.fi</email>
</address>
</author>
<author initials="S" surname="Barth" fullname="Steven Barth">
<organization>Independent</organization>
<address>
<postal>
<street/>
<city>Halle</city>
<code>06114</code>
<country>Germany</country>
</postal>
<email>cyrus@openwrt.org</email>
</address>
</author>
<date month="November" year="2015" />
<area>Internet</area>
<workgroup>Homenet Working Group</workgroup>
<keyword>Homenet</keyword>
<abstract>
<t>This document describes the Distributed Node Consensus Protocol
(DNCP), a generic state synchronization protocol that uses the Trickle
algorithm and hash trees. DNCP is an abstract protocol, and must be
combined with a specific profile to make a complete implementable
protocol.</t>
</abstract>
</front>
<middle>
<section title="Introduction">
<t>DNCP is designed to provide a way for each participating node to
publish a small set of TLV (Type-Length-Value) tuples (at most 64
KB), and to provide a shared and common view about the data published
by every currently bidirectionally reachable DNCP node in a network.</t>
<t>For state synchronization a hash tree is used. It is formed by
first calculating a hash for the dataset published by each node,
called node data, and then calculating another hash over those node
data hashes. The single resulting hash, called network state hash,
is transmitted using the <xref target="RFC6206">Trickle
algorithm</xref> to ensure that all nodes share the same view of the
current state of the published data within the network. The use of
Trickle with only short network state hashes sent infrequently (in
steady state, once the maximum Trickle interval per link or unicast
connection has been reached) makes DNCP very thrifty when updates
happen rarely.</t>
<t>For maintaining liveliness of the topology and the data within it,
a combination of Trickled network state, keep-alives, and "other"
means of ensuring reachability are used. The core idea is that if
every node ensures its peers are present, transitively, the whole
network state also stays up-to-date.</t>
<section title="Applicability">
<t>DNCP is useful for cases like autonomous bootstrapping, discovery
and negotiation of embedded network devices like routers.
Furthermore it can be used as a basis to run distributed algorithms
like <xref target="I-D.ietf-homenet-prefix-assignment" /> or
usecases as described in <xref target="profile-example"/>. DNCP is
abstract, which allows it to be tuned to a variety of applications by
defining profiles. These profiles include choices of:
<list style="hanging">
<t hangText="- unicast transport:">datagram or stream oriented protocol
(e.g., TCP, UDP, SCTP) for generic protocol operation</t>
<t hangText="- optional transport security:">whether and when to use
security based on (D)TLS, if supported over the chosen transport</t>
<t hangText="- optional multicast transport:">multicast-capable
protocol like UDP allowing autonomous peer discovery or more efficient
use of multiple access links</t>
<t hangText="- communication scopes:">either hop-by-hop only relying
on link-local addressing (e.g., for LANs) or using addresses with
broader scopes (e.g. over WANs or the internet) relying on an existing
routing infrastructure or a combination of both (e.g., to exchange
state between multiple LANs over a WAN or the internet)</t>
<t hangText="- payloads:">additional specific payloads (e.g., IANA
standardized, enterprise-specific or private use)</t>
<t hangText="- extensions:">possible protocol extensions, either as
predefined in this document or specific for a particular usecase</t>
</list>
However, there are certain cases where the protocol as defined in this
document is a less suitable choice. This list provides an overview while
the following paragraphs provide more detailed guidance on the individual
matters.
<list style="hanging">
<t hangText="- large amounts of data:">nodes are limited to 64KB of
published data</t>
<t hangText="- very dense unicast-only networks:">nodes include
information about all immediate neighbors as part of their published
data.</t>
<t hangText="- predominantly minimal data changes:">Node data is
always transported as-is, leading to a relatively large transmission
overhead for changes affecting only a small part of it.</t>
<t hangText="- frequently changing data:">DNCP with its use of Trickle
is optimized for the steady state and less efficient otherwise.</t>
<t hangText="- large amounts of very constrained nodes:">DNCP requires
each node to store the entirety of the data published by all nodes.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>The topology of the devices is not limited and automatically discovered.
When relying on link-local communication exclusively, all links having
DNCP nodes need to be at least transitively connected by routers running
the protocol on multiple endpoints in order to form a connected network.
However, there is no requirement for every device in a physical network to
run the protocol. Especially if globally scoped addresses are used, DNCP
peers do not need to be on the same or even neighboring physical links.
Autonomous discovery features are usually used in local network
scenario however - with security enabled - DNCP can also be used
over unsecured public networks. Network size is restricted merely by
the capabilities of the devices, i.e., each DNCP node needs to be
able to store the entirety of the data published by all nodes.
The data associated with each individual node identifier is limited to
about 64KB in this document, however protocol extensions could be defined
to mitigate this or other protocol limitations if the need arises.</t>
<t>DNCP is most suitable for data that changes only infrequently to
gain the maximum benefit from using Trickle. As the network of
nodes grows, or the frequency of data changes per node increases,
Trickle is eventually used less and less and the benefit of using
DNCP diminishes. In these cases Trickle just provides extra
complexity within the specification and little added value.</t>
<t>The suitability of DNCP for a particular application can roughly
be evaluated by considering the expected average network-wide state
change interval A_NC_I; it is computed by dividing the mean
interval at which a node originates a new TLV set by the number
of participating nodes. If keep-alives are used, A_NC_I is the
minimum of the computed A_NC_I and the keep-alive interval.
If A_NC_I is less than the (application-specific) Trickle minimum
interval, DNCP is most likely unsuitable for the application as
Trickle will not be utilized most of the time. </t>
<t>If constant rapid state changes are needed, the preferable
choice is to use an additional point-to-point channel whose address
or locator is published using DNCP. Nevertheless, if doing so does
not raise A_NC_I above the (sensibly chosen) Trickle interval
parameters for a particular application, using DNCP is probably
not suitable for the application.</t>
<t>Another consideration is the size of the published TLV set by a
node compared to the size of deltas in the TLV set. If the TLV set
published by a node is very large, and has frequent small changes,
DNCP as currently specified in this specification may be unsuitable
as it lacks a delta synchronization scheme to keep implementation
simple.</t>
<t>DNCP can be used in networks where only unicast transport is
available. While DNCP uses the least amount of bandwidth when
multicast is utilized, even in pure unicast mode, the use
of Trickle (ideally with k < 2) results in a protocol with an
exponential backoff timer and fewer transmissions than a simpler
protocol not using Trickle.</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Terminology">
<texttable suppress-title="true" style="none" align="left">
<ttcol width="25%" /><ttcol width="75%" />
<c>DNCP profile</c>
<c>the values for the set of parameters, given in <xref
target="profile-bits"/>. They are prefixed with DNCP_ in this
document. The profile also specifies the set of optional DNCP
extensions to be used. For a simple example DNCP profile, see <xref
target="profile-example" />.
</c>
<c /><c />
<c>DNCP-based protocol</c>
<c>a protocol which provides a DNCP profile, according to <xref
target="profile-bits"/>, and zero or more TLV assignments from the
per-DNCP profile TLV registry as well as their processing rules.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>DNCP node</c>
<c>a single node which runs a DNCP-based protocol.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Link</c>
<c>a link-layer media over which directly connected nodes can
communicate.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>DNCP network</c>
<c>a set of DNCP nodes running DNCP-based protocol(s) with
matching DNCP profile(s).
The set consists of nodes that have discovered each other using the
transport method defined in the DNCP profile, via multicast
on local links, and / or by using unicast communication.
</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Node identifier</c>
<c>an opaque fixed-length identifier consisting of
DNCP_NODE_IDENTIFIER_LENGTH bytes which uniquely identifies a DNCP
node within a DNCP network.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Interface</c>
<c>a node's attachment to a particular link.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Address</c>
<c>an identifier used as source or destination of a DNCP message flow,
e.g., a tuple (IPv6 address, UDP port) for an IPv6 UDP transport.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Endpoint</c>
<c>a locally configured termination point for (potential or established)
DNCP message flows. An endpoint is the source and destination for separate
unicast message flows to individual nodes and optionally for multicast
messages to all thereby reachable nodes (e.g., for node discovery).
Endpoints are usually in one of the transport modes specified in <xref
target="dt" />.
</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Endpoint identifier</c>
<c>a 32-bit opaque and locally unique value, which identifies a
particular endpoint of a particular DNCP node. The value 0 is reserved
for DNCP and DNCP-based protocol purposes and not used to identify an
actual endpoint. This definition is in sync with the interface index
definition in <xref target="RFC3493"/>, as the non-zero small
positive integers should comfortably fit within 32 bits.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Peer</c>
<c>another DNCP node with which a DNCP node communicates using at least
one particular local and remote endpoint pair.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Node data</c>
<c>a set of TLVs published and owned by a node in the DNCP
network. Other nodes pass it along as-is, even if they cannot
fully interpret it.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Origination Time</c>
<c>the (estimated) time when the node data set with the
current sequence number was published.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Node state</c>
<c>a set of metadata attributes for node data. It includes a sequence
number for versioning, a hash value for comparing equality of stored
node data, and a timestamp indicating the time passed since its last
publication (i.e., since the origination time). The hash function and
the length of the hash value are defined in the DNCP profile.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Network state hash</c>
<c>a hash value which represents the current state of the network.
The hash function and the length of the hash value are defined in
the DNCP profile.
Whenever a node is added, removed or updates its published node data
this hash value changes as well.
For calculation, please see <xref target="hash-tree" />.
</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Trust verdict</c>
<c>a statement about the trustworthiness of a
certificate announced by a node participating in the certificate
based trust consensus mechanism.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Effective trust verdict</c>
<c>the trust verdict with the highest priority within the set of
trust verdicts announced for the certificate in the DNCP network.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Topology graph</c>
<c>the undirected graph of DNCP nodes produced by
retaining only bidirectional peer relationships between nodes.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Bidirectionally reachable</c>
<c>a peer is locally unidirectionally reachable if a
consistent multicast or any unicast DNCP message
has been received by the local node (see <xref target="peers" />).
If said peer in return also considers the local node unidirectionally
reachable, then bidirectionally reachability is established.
As this process is based on publishing peer relationships and
evaluating the resulting topology graph as described in <xref
target="liveliness" />, this information is available to the
whole DNCP network.</c>
<c /><c />
<c>Trickle Instance</c>
<c>a distinct <xref target="RFC6206">Trickle</xref> algorithm state
kept by a <xref target="dm">node</xref> and related to an endpoint
or a particular (peer, endpoint) tuple with Trickle variables I, t
and c. See <xref target="trickle-updates" />.</c>
</texttable>
<section anchor="kwd" title='Requirements Language'>
<t>
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL
NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT
RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to
be interpreted as described in <xref target='RFC2119'>RFC 2119</xref>.
</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Overview">
<t>DNCP operates primarily using unicast exchanges between nodes, and
may use multicast for Trickle-based shared state dissemination and
topology discovery. If used in pure unicast mode with unreliable
transport, Trickle is also used between peers.</t>
<t>DNCP is based on exchanging <xref target="tlvs">TLVs</xref> and
defines a set of mandatory and optional ones for its operation. They are
categorized into TLVs for <xref target="tlv-request">requesting
information</xref>, <xref target="tlv-data">transmitting data</xref> and
<xref target="tlv-state">being published as data</xref>. DNCP based
protocols usually specify additional ones to extend the capabilities.</t>
<t>DNCP discovers the topology of the nodes in the DNCP network and
maintains the liveliness of published node data by ensuring that the
publishing node is bidirectionally reachable.
New potential peers can be discovered autonomously on
multicast-enabled links, their addresses may be manually configured
or they may be found by some other means defined in the particular
DNCP profile. The DNCP profile may specify, for example, a well-known
anycast address or provisioning the remote address to contact via
some other protocol such as <xref target="RFC3315">DHCPv6</xref>.</t>
<t>A hash tree of height 1, rooted in itself, is maintained by each
node to represent the state of all currently reachable nodes (see
<xref target="hash-tree" />) and the Trickle algorithm is used to
trigger synchronization (see <xref target="trickle-updates" />).
The need to check peer nodes for state changes is thereby determined
by comparing the current root of their respective hash trees, i.e.,
their individually calculated network state hashes.</t>
<t>Before joining a DNCP network, a node starts with a hash tree that
has only one leaf if the node publishes some TLVs, and no leaves
otherwise.
<!-- SB: should it have no leaves or 1 leave based on (the hash of)
an empty string? -->
<!-- MSt: 'empty' node state cannot be transmitted on the wire
currently, so no leaves is probably the correct choice. -->
It then announces the network state hash calculated from the hash
tree by means of the Trickle algorithm on all its configured
endpoints.</t>
<t>When an update is detected by a node (e.g., by receiving a
different network state hash from a peer) the originator of the
event is requested to provide a list of the state of all nodes,
i.e., all the information it uses to calculate its own hash
tree.
The node uses the list to determine whether its own information is
outdated and - if necessary - requests the actual node data that has
changed. </t>
<t>Whenever a node's local copy of any node data and its hash tree are
updated (e.g., due to its own or another node's node state changing or
due to a peer being added or removed) its Trickle instances are reset
which eventually causes any update to be propagated to all of its
peers.</t>
</section>
<section title="Operation">
<section title="Hash Tree" anchor="hash-tree">
<t>Each DNCP node maintains an arbitrary width hash tree of height
1. The root of the tree represents the overall network state hash and
is used to determine whether the view of the network of two or more
nodes is consistent and shared. Each leaf represents one
bidirectionally reachable DNCP node. Every time a node is added or
removed from the <xref target="liveliness">topology graph</xref>
it is likewise added or removed as a leaf. At any time the leaves of
the tree are ordered in ascending order of the node identifiers of the
nodes they represent.</t>
<section title="Calculating network state and node data hashes">
<t>The network state hash and the node data hashes are calculated
using the hash function defined in the <xref target="profile-bits">
DNCP profile</xref> and truncated to the number of bits specified
therein.</t>
<t>Individual node data hashes are calculated by applying the
function and truncation on the respective node's node data as
published in the Node State TLV. Such node data sets are always
ordered as defined in <xref target="node-state" />.</t>
<t>The network state hash is calculated by applying the function
and truncation on the concatenated network state. This state is
formed by first concatenating each node's sequence number (in
network byte order) with its node data hash to form a per-node
datum for each node. These per-node data are then concatenated in
ascending order of the respective node's node identifier, i.e.,
in the order that the nodes appear in the hash tree.</t>
</section>
<section title="Updating network state and node data hashes">
<t>The network state hash and the node data hashes are updated
on-demand and whenever any locally stored per-node state changes.
This includes local unidirectional reachability encoded in the
published <xref target="peer">Peer TLVs</xref> and - when combined
with remote data - results in awareness of bidirectional
reachability changes.</t>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="dt" title="Data Transport">
<t>DNCP has few requirements for the underlying
transport; it requires some way of transmitting either unicast
datagram or stream data to a peer and, if used in multicast mode, a
way of sending multicast datagrams.
As multicast is used only to identify potential new DNCP nodes and
to send status messages which merely notify that a unicast exchange
should be triggered, the multicast transport does not have to be
secured.
If unicast security is desired and one of the built-in security
methods is to be used, support for some TLS-derived transport
scheme - such as <xref target="RFC5246">TLS</xref> on top of TCP or
<xref target="RFC6347">DTLS</xref> on top of UDP - is also
required. They provide for integrity protection and confidentiality
of the node data, as well as authentication and authorization using
the schemes defined in <xref target="sec-trust">Security and Trust
Management</xref>.
A specific definition of the transport(s) in use and their parameters
MUST be provided by the DNCP profile.</t>
<t><xref target="tlvs">TLVs</xref> are sent across the transport as is,
and they SHOULD be sent together where, e.g., MTU considerations do not
recommend sending them in multiple batches. DNCP does not fragment or
reassemble TLVs thus it MUST be ensured that the underlying transport
performs these operations should they be necessary. If this document
indicates sending one or more TLVs, then the sending node does not need
to keep track of the packets sent after handing them over to the
respective transport, i.e., reliable DNCP operation is ensured merely
by the explicitly defined timers and state machines such as
<xref target="trickle-updates">Trickle</xref>.
TLVs in general are handled individually and statelessly (and thus do
not need to be sent in any particular order) with one exception:
To form bidirectional peer relationships DNCP requires
identification of the endpoints used for communication. As bidirectional peer
relationships are required for validating liveliness of published node
data as described in <xref target="liveliness" />, a DNCP node MUST
send a <xref target="endpoint">Node Endpoint TLV</xref>. When it is
sent varies, depending on the underlying transport, but
conceptually it should be available whenever processing a Network
State TLV:
<list style="symbols">
<t>If using a stream transport, the TLV MUST be sent at least
once per connection, but SHOULD NOT be sent more than once.</t>
<t>If using a datagram transport, it MUST be included in every
datagram that also contains a <xref target="net-state">Network
State TLV</xref> and MUST be located before any such TLV.
It SHOULD also be included in any other datagram, to speed up
initial peer detection.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>Given the assorted transport options as well as potential
endpoint configuration, a DNCP endpoint may be used in various
transport modes:
<list style="hanging">
<t hangText="Unicast:">
<list style="symbols">
<t>If only reliable unicast transport is used, Trickle is
not used at all. Whenever the locally calculated
network state hash changes, a
single <xref target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> is
sent to every unicast peer. Additionally, recently
changed <xref target="node-state">Node State TLVs</xref> MAY
be included.</t>
<t>If only unreliable unicast transport is used, Trickle
state is kept per peer and it is used to send Network State
TLVs intermittently, as specified in <xref
target="trickle-updates" />.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t hangText="Multicast+Unicast:"> If multicast datagram transport
is available on an endpoint, Trickle state is only maintained for
the endpoint as a whole. It is used to send Network State TLVs
periodically, as specified in <xref target="trickle-updates"
/>. Additionally, per-endpoint keep-alives MAY be defined in the
DNCP profile, as specified in <xref target="pe-ka" />.</t>
<t hangText="MulticastListen+Unicast:">
Just like Unicast, except multicast transmissions are listened to
in order to detect changes of the highest node identifier.
This mode is used only if the DNCP profile supports <xref
target="dense-multicast">dense multicast-enabled link optimization</xref>.</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Trickle-Driven Status Updates"
anchor="trickle-updates">
<t>The <xref target="RFC6206">Trickle algorithm</xref> is used to
ensure protocol reliability over unreliable multicast or unicast
transports. For reliable unicast transports, its actual algorithm
is unnecessary and <xref target="dt">omitted</xref>. DNCP maintains
multiple Trickle states as defined in <xref target="dm" />. Each such
state can be based on different parameters (see below) and is
responsible for ensuring that a specific peer or all peers on the
respective endpoint are regularly provided with the node's current
locally calculated network state hash for state comparison, i.e.,
to detect potential divergence in the perceived network state.</t>
<t>Trickle defines
3 parameters: Imin, Imax and k. Imin and Imax represent the minimum
value for I and the maximum number of doublings of Imin, where I is
the time interval during which at least k Trickle updates must be
seen on an endpoint to prevent local state transmission. The
actual suggested Trickle algorithm parameters are DNCP profile
specific, as described in <xref target="profile-bits"/>.</t>
<t>The Trickle state for all Trickle instances defined in <xref
target="dm" /> is considered inconsistent and reset if and only if
the locally calculated network state hash changes. This occurs
either due to a change in the local node's own node data, or due to
receipt of more recent data from another node as explained in
<xref target="hash-tree" />. A node MUST NOT
reset its Trickle state merely based on receiving a <xref
target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> with a network state
hash which is different from its locally calculated one.</t>
<t>Every time a particular Trickle instance indicates that an
update should be sent, the node MUST send a <xref
target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> if and only if:
<list style="symbols">
<t>the endpoint is in Multicast+Unicast transport mode, in which
case the TLV MUST be sent over multicast.</t>
<t>the endpoint is NOT in Multicast+Unicast transport mode, and the
unicast transport is unreliable, in which case the TLV MUST be sent
over unicast.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>A (sub)set of all <xref target="node-state">Node State
TLVs</xref> MAY also be included, unless it is defined as
undesirable for some reason by the DNCP profile, or to avoid
exposure of the node state TLVs by transmitting them within
insecure multicast when using secure unicast.</t>
</section>
<section title="Processing of Received TLVs" anchor="reception">
<t>This section describes how received TLVs are processed. The DNCP
profile may specify when to ignore particular TLVs, e.g., to modify
security properties - see <xref target="profile-bits" /> for
what may be safely defined to be ignored in a profile.
Any 'reply' mentioned in the steps below denotes sending of the
specified TLV(s) to the originator of the TLV being processed.
All such replies MUST be sent using unicast.
If the TLV being replied to was received via multicast
and it was sent to a multiple access link, the reply MUST be
delayed by a random timespan in [0, Imin/2], to avoid potential
simultaneous replies that may cause problems on some links,
unless specified differently in the DNCP profile. Sending
of replies MAY also be rate-limited or omitted for a short period
of time by an implementation. However, if the TLV is not forbidden
by the DNCP profile, an implementation MUST reply to
retransmissions of the TLV with a non-zero probability to avoid
starvation which would break the state synchronization.</t>
<t>A DNCP node MUST process TLVs received from any valid (e.g.,
correctly scoped) address,
as specified by the DNCP profile and the configuration of a
particular endpoint, whether this address is known to be the
address of a peer or not. This provision satisfies the needs of
monitoring or other host software that needs to discover the DNCP
topology without adding to the state in the network.</t>
<t>Upon receipt of:
<list style="symbols">
<t><xref target="req-net-state">Request Network State TLV</xref>:
The receiver MUST reply with a <xref target="net-state">Network
State TLV</xref> and a <xref target="node-state">Node State
TLV</xref> for each node data used to calculate the network state
hash. The Node State TLVs SHOULD NOT contain the optional node
data part to avoid redundant transmission of node data,
unless explicitly specified in the DNCP profile.</t>
<t><xref target="req-node-state">Request Node State TLV</xref>:
If the receiver has node data for the corresponding node, it MUST
reply with a <xref target="node-state">Node State TLV</xref> for
the corresponding node. The optional node data part MUST be
included in the TLV.</t>
<t><xref target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref>:
If the network state hash differs from the locally calculated
network state hash, and the receiver is unaware of any particular
node state differences with the sender, the receiver MUST reply
with a <xref target="req-net-state">Request Network State
TLV</xref>. These replies MUST be rate limited to only at most
one reply per link per unique network state hash within Imin. The
simplest way to ensure this rate limit is a timestamp indicating
requests, and sending at most one <xref target="req-net-state">
Request Network State TLV</xref> per Imin.
To facilitate faster state synchronization, if a Request Network
State TLV is sent in a reply, a local, current Network State TLV
MAY also be sent.</t>
<t><xref target="node-state">Node State TLV</xref>:
<list style="symbols">
<t>If the node identifier matches the local node identifier and
the TLV has a greater sequence number than its current
local value, or the same sequence number and a different
hash, the node SHOULD re-publish its own node data with a
sequence number significantly (e.g., 1000) greater than
the received one, to reclaim the node identifier. This difference
is needed in order to ensure that it is higher than any potentially
lingering copies of the node state in the network.
This may occur normally once due to the local
node restarting and not storing the most recently used
sequence number. If this occurs more than once or for nodes
not re-publishing their own node data, the DNCP profile
MUST provide guidance on how to handle these situations as
it indicates the existence of another active node with the same
node identifier.</t>
<t>If the node identifier does not match the local node
identifier, and one or more of the following conditions are
true:
<list style="symbols">
<t>The local information is outdated for the corresponding node
(local sequence number is less than that within the
TLV).</t>
<t>The local information is potentially incorrect (local
sequence number matches but the node data hash differs).</t>
<t>There is no data for that node altogether.</t>
</list>
Then:
<list style="symbols">
<t>If the TLV contains the Node Data field, it SHOULD also be
verified by ensuring that the locally calculated hash of the
Node Data matches the content of the H(Node Data) field within
the TLV. If they differ, the TLV SHOULD be ignored and not
processed further.</t>
<t>If the TLV does not contain the Node Data field, and the
H(Node Data) field within the TLV differs from the local node
data hash for that node (or there is none), the receiver MUST
reply with a <xref target="req-node-state">Request Node State
TLV</xref> for the corresponding node.</t>
<t>Otherwise the receiver MUST update its locally stored
state for that node (node data based on Node Data field if
present, sequence number and relative time) to match the
received TLV.</t>
</list>
</t>
</list>
For comparison purposes of the sequence number,
a looping comparison function MUST be used to avoid problems in
case of overflow.
The comparison function a < b <=> ((a - b) % (2^32))
& (2^31) != 0 where (a % b) represents the remainder of a
modulo b and (a & b) represents bitwise conjunction of a and
b is RECOMMENDED unless the DNCP profile defines another.
</t>
<t>Any other TLV:
TLVs not recognized by the receiver MUST be silently ignored
unless they are sent within another TLV (for example, TLVs within
the Node Data field of a Node State TLV). TLVs within the Node Data
field of the Node State TLV not recognized by the receiver MUST be
retained for distribution to other nodes and for calculating the
node data hash as described in <xref target="node-state" /> but
are ignored for other purposes.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>If secure unicast transport is configured for an endpoint, any
Node State TLVs received over insecure multicast MUST be silently
ignored.</t>
</section>
<section anchor="peers" title="Discovering, Adding and Removing Peers">
<t>Peer relations are established between neighbors using one or more
mutually connected endpoints. Such neighbors exchange information about
network state and published data directly and through transitivity this
information then propagates throughout the network.</t>
<t>New peers are discovered using the regular unicast or multicast
transport defined in the <xref target="profile-bits">DNCP profile
</xref>. This process is not distinguished from peer addition, i.e.,
an unknown peer is simply discovered by receiving regular DNCP protocol
TLVs from it and dedicated discovery messages or TLVs do not exist.
For unicast-only transports, the individual node's transport addresses
are preconfigured or obtained using an external service discovery
protocol. In the presence of a multicast transport, messages from
unknown peers are handled in the same way as multicast messages from
peers that are already known, thus new peers are simply discovered
when sending their regular DNCP protocol TLVs using multicast.</t>
<t>When receiving a <xref target="endpoint">Node Endpoint
TLV</xref> on an endpoint from an unknown peer:
<list style="symbols">
<t>If received over unicast, the remote node MUST be added as a
peer on the endpoint and a <xref target="peer">Peer
TLV</xref> MUST be created for it.
</t>
<t>If received over multicast, the node MAY be sent a (possibly
rate-limited) unicast <xref target="req-net-state">Request
Network State TLV</xref>.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>If keep-alives specified in <xref target="ka" /> are NOT sent by
the peer (either the DNCP profile does not specify the use of
keep-alives or the particular peer chooses not to send
keep-alives), some other existing local transport-specific
means (such as Ethernet carrier-detection or TCP keep-alive)
MUST be used to ensure its presence.
If the peer does not send keep-alives, and no means to verify
presence of the peer are available, the peer MUST be considered no
longer present and it SHOULD NOT be added back as a peer until it
starts sending keep-alives again.
When the peer is no longer present, the Peer
TLV and the local DNCP peer state MUST be removed. DNCP does not
define an explicit message or TLV for indicating the termination of
DNCP operation by the terminating node, however a derived protocol
could specify an extension, if the need arises.</t>
<t>If the local endpoint is in the Multicast-Listen+Unicast
transport mode, a <xref target="peer">Peer TLV</xref> MUST
NOT be published for the peers not having the highest node
identifier.</t>
</section>
<section anchor="liveliness" title="Data Liveliness Validation">
<t>Maintenance of the <xref target="hash-tree">hash tree</xref> and
thereby network state hash updates depend on up-to-date information
on bidirectional node reachability derived from the contents of a
topology graph. This graph changes whenever nodes are added to or
removed from the network or when bidirectional connectivity between
existing nodes is established or lost. Therefore the graph MUST be
updated either immediately or with a small delay shorter than the
DNCP profile-defined Trickle Imin, whenever:
<list style="symbols">
<t>A Peer TLV or a whole node is added or removed, or</t>
<t>the origination time (in milliseconds) of some node's node
data is less than current time - 2^32 + 2^15.</t>
</list>
The artificial upper limit for the origination time is used to
gracefully avoid overflows of the origination time and allow for
the node to republish its data as noted in <xref
target="node-state" />.
</t>
<t>The topology graph update starts with the local node marked as
reachable and all other nodes marked as unreachable. Other nodes are
then iteratively marked as reachable using the following algorithm:
A candidate not-yet-reachable node N with an endpoint NE is marked
as reachable if there is a reachable node R with an endpoint RE that
meet all of the following criteria:
<list style="symbols">
<t>The origination time (in milliseconds) of R's node data is
greater than current time - 2^32 + 2^15.</t>
<t>R publishes a Peer TLV with:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Peer Node Identifier = N's node identifier</t>
<t>Peer Endpoint Identifier = NE's endpoint
identifier</t>
<t>Endpoint Identifier = RE's endpoint identifier</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>N publishes a Peer TLV with:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Peer Node Identifier = R's node identifier</t>
<t>Peer Endpoint Identifier = RE's endpoint identifier</t>
<t>Endpoint Identifier = NE's endpoint identifier</t>
</list>
</t>
</list>
The algorithm terminates, when no more candidate nodes
fulfilling these criteria can be found.
</t>
<t>DNCP nodes that have not been reachable in the most recent
topology graph traversal MUST NOT be used for calculation of the
network state hash, be provided to any applications that need to
use the whole TLV graph, or be provided to remote nodes. They MAY
be forgotten immediately after the topology graph traversal,
however it is RECOMMENDED to keep them at least briefly to improve
the speed of DNCP network state convergence. This reduces the
number of queries needed to reconverge during both initial network
convergence and when a part of the network loses and regains
bidirectional connectivity within that time period.</t>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="dm" title="Data Model">
<t>This section describes the local data structures a minimal
implementation might use. This section is provided only as a
convenience for the implementor. Some of the <xref
target="ext">optional extensions</xref> describe additional data
requirements, and some optional parts of the core protocol may also
require more.</t>
<t>A DNCP node has:
<list style="symbols">
<t>A data structure containing data about the most recently sent
<xref target="req-net-state">Request Network State TLVs</xref>.
The simplest option is keeping a timestamp of the most recent request
(required to fulfill reply rate limiting specified in <xref target="reception" />).</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>A DNCP node has for every DNCP node in the DNCP network:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Node identifier: the unique identifier of the node. The length,
how it is produced, and how collisions are handled, is up to the
DNCP profile.</t>
<t>Node data: the set of TLV tuples published by that particular
node. As they are transmitted ordered (see <xref
target="node-state">Node State TLV</xref> for details), maintaining
the order within the data structure here may be reasonable. </t>
<t>Latest sequence number: the 32-bit sequence number that
is incremented any time the TLV set is published. The comparison
function used to compare them is described in <xref
target="reception" />.</t>
<t>Origination time: the (estimated) time when the
current TLV set with the current sequence number was
published.
It is used to populate the Milliseconds Since Origination field in
a <xref target="node-state">Node State TLV</xref>. Ideally it also
has millisecond accuracy.
</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>Additionally, a DNCP node has a set of endpoints for which DNCP
is configured to be used. For each such endpoint, a node has:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Endpoint identifier: the 32-bit opaque locally unique
value identifying the endpoint within a node. It SHOULD
NOT be reused immediately after an endpoint is disabled.</t>
<t>Trickle instance: the endpoint's Trickle instance with
parameters I, T, and c (only on an endpoint in Multicast+Unicast
transport mode).</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>and one (or more) of the following:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Interface: the assigned local network interface.</t>
<t>Unicast address: the DNCP node it should connect with.</t>
<t>Set of addresses: the DNCP nodes from which connections
are accepted.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>For each remote (peer, endpoint) pair detected on a
local endpoint, a DNCP node has:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Node identifier: the unique identifier of the peer.</t>
<t>Endpoint identifier: the unique endpoint identifier used by the
peer.</t>
<t>Peer address: the most recently used address of the peer
(authenticated and authorized, if security is enabled).</t>
<t>Trickle instance: the particular peer's Trickle instance with
parameters I, T, and c (only on an endpoint in Unicast mode, when
using an unreliable unicast transport) .</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section anchor="ext" title="Optional Extensions">
<t>This section specifies extensions to the core protocol that a DNCP
profile may specify to be used.</t>
<section anchor="ka" title="Keep-Alives">
<t>While DNCP provides <xref target="peers">mechanisms for
discovery and adding of new peers on an endpoint</xref>, as well as
state change notifications, another mechanism may be needed to get
rid of old, no longer valid peers if the transport or lower layers
do not provide one as noted in <xref target="liveliness" />.</t>
<t>If keep-alives are not specified in the DNCP profile, the rest
of this subsection MUST be ignored.</t>
<t>A DNCP profile MAY specify either per-endpoint (sent using
multicast to all DNCP nodes connected to a multicast-enabled link)
or per-peer (sent using unicast to each peer individually)
keep-alive support. </t>
<t>For every endpoint that a keep-alive is specified for in the
DNCP profile, the endpoint-specific keep-alive interval MUST be
maintained. By default, it is DNCP_KEEPALIVE_INTERVAL. If there is a
local value that is preferred for that for any reason (configuration,
energy conservation, media type, ..), it can be substituted
instead. If a non-default keep-alive interval is used on any
endpoint, a DNCP node MUST publish appropriate <xref
target="ka-interval">Keep-Alive Interval TLV(s)</xref> within its
node data.</t>
<section title="Data Model Additions" anchor="ka-dm">
<t>The following additions to the <xref target="dm">Data
Model</xref> are needed to support keep-alives:</t>
<t>For each configured endpoint that has per-endpoint keep-alives
enabled:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Last sent: If a timestamp which indicates the last time a
<xref target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> was sent over
that interface.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>For each remote (peer, endpoint) pair detected on a
local endpoint, a DNCP node has:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Last contact timestamp: a timestamp which indicates the last
time a consistent <xref target="net-state">Network State
TLV</xref> was received from the peer over multicast, or anything
was received over unicast. Failing to update it for a certain
amount of time as specified in <xref target="ka-peer-removal" />
results in the removal of the peer. When adding a new peer, it is
initialized to the current time.</t>
<t>Last sent: If per-peer keep-alives are enabled, a timestamp
which indicates the last time a <xref
target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> was sent to to that
point-to-point peer. When adding a new peer, it is initialized
to the current time.</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section anchor="pe-ka" title="Per-Endpoint Periodic Keep-Alives">
<t>If per-endpoint keep-alives are enabled on an endpoint in
Multicast+Unicast transport mode, and if no traffic containing a
<xref target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> has been sent
to a particular endpoint within the endpoint-specific keep-alive
interval, a <xref target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref>
MUST be sent on that endpoint,
and a new Trickle interval started, as specified in the
step 2 of Section 4.2 of <xref target="RFC6206" />.
The actual sending
time SHOULD be further delayed by a random timespan in [0,
Imin/2].</t>
</section>
<section title="Per-Peer Periodic Keep-Alives">
<t>If per-peer keep-alives are enabled on a unicast-only
endpoint, and if no traffic containing a <xref
target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> has been sent to a
particular peer within the endpoint-specific keep-alive interval,
a <xref target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> MUST be sent to
the peer,
and a new Trickle interval started, as specified in the
step 2 of Section 4.2 of <xref target="RFC6206" />.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Received TLV Processing Additions">
<t>If a TLV is received over unicast from the peer, the Last
contact timestamp for the peer MUST be updated.</t>
<t>On receipt of a <xref target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref>
which is consistent with the locally calculated network state hash,
the Last contact timestamp for the peer MUST be updated in order
to maintain it as a peer.</t>
</section>
<section title="Peer Removal" anchor="ka-peer-removal">
<t>For every peer on every endpoint, the endpoint-specific
keep-alive interval must be calculated by looking for <xref
target="ka-interval">Keep-Alive Interval TLVs</xref> published by
the node, and if none exist, using the default value of
DNCP_KEEPALIVE_INTERVAL. If the peer's Last contact
timestamp has not been updated for at least locally chosen
potentially endpoint-specific keep-alive multiplier (defaults to
DNCP_KEEPALIVE_MULTIPLIER) times the peer's endpoint-specific
keep-alive interval, the Peer TLV for that peer and the local
DNCP peer state MUST be removed.</t>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="dense-multicast" title="Support For Dense Multicast-Enabled Links">
<t>This optimization is needed to avoid a state space explosion.
Given a large set of DNCP nodes publishing data on an endpoint
that uses multicast on a link, every node will add a
<xref target="peer">Peer TLV</xref> for each peer.
While Trickle limits the amount of traffic on the link in
stable state to some extent, the total amount of data that is added
to and maintained in the DNCP network given N nodes on a
multicast-enabled link is O(N^2). Additionally if per-peer
keep-alives are used, there will be O(N^2) keep-alives running
on the link if liveliness of peers is not ensured using some other
way (e.g., TCP connection lifetime, layer 2 notification,
per-endpoint keep-alive). </t>
<t>An upper bound for the number of peers that are allowed for
a particular type of link that an endpoint in Multicast+Unicast
transport mode is used on SHOULD be provided by a DNCP profile, but
MAY also be chosen at runtime.
The main consideration when selecting a bound (if any)
for a particular type of link should be whether it supports
multicast traffic, and whether a too large number of peers case
is likely to happen during the use of that DNCP profile
on that particular type of link. If neither is likely, there is little
point specifying support for this for that particular link
type.</t>
<t>If a DNCP profile does not support this extension at all, the
rest of this subsection MUST be ignored. This is because when this
extension is used, the state within the DNCP network only
contains a subset of the full topology of the network. Therefore
every node must be aware of the potential of it being used in a
particular DNCP profile.</t>
<t>If the specified upper bound is exceeded for some endpoint in
Multicast+Unicast transport mode and if the node does not have the
highest node identifier on the link, it SHOULD treat the endpoint
as a unicast endpoint connected to the node that has the highest
node identifier detected on the link, therefore transitioning to
Multicast-listen+Unicast transport mode. See <xref target="dt" />
for implications on the specific endpoint behavior. The nodes in
Multicast-listen+Unicast transport mode MUST keep listening to
multicast traffic to both receive messages from the node(s) still
in Multicast+Unicast mode, and as well to react to nodes with a
greater node identifier appearing. If the highest node identifier
present on the link changes, the remote unicast address of the
endpoints in Multicast-Listen+Unicast transport mode MUST be
changed. If the node identifier of the local node is the highest
one, the node MUST switch back to, or stay in Multicast+Unicast
mode, and form peer relationships with all peers as specified
in <xref target="peers" />.</t>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="tlvs" title="Type-Length-Value Objects">
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Value (if any) (+padding (if any)) |
..
| (variable # of bytes) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| (Optional nested TLVs) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
</artwork>
</figure>
<t>Each TLV is encoded as:
<list style="symbols">
<t>a 2 byte Type field</t>
<t>a 2 byte Length field which contains the length of the Value
field in bytes; 0 means no Value</t>
<t>the Value itself (if any)</t>
<t>padding bytes with value of zero up to the next 4 byte
boundary if the Length is not divisible by 4.</t>
</list>
While padding bytes MUST NOT be included in the number stored in
the Length field of the TLV, if the TLV is enclosed within
another TLV, then the padding is included in the enclosing TLV's
Length value.</t>
<t>Each TLV which does not define optional fields or variable-length
content MAY be sent with additional sub-TLVs appended after the TLV
to allow for extensibility.
When handling such TLV types, each node MUST accept received TLVs
that are longer than the fixed fields specified for the particular
type, and ignore the sub-TLVs with either unknown types, or not
supported within that particular TLV type.
If any sub-TLVs are present, the Length field of the TLV describes
the number of bytes from the first byte of the TLV's own Value (if
any) to the last (padding) byte of the last sub-TLV.</t>
<t>
For example, type=123 (0x7b) TLV with value 'x' (120 =
0x78) is encoded as: 007B 0001 7800 0000. If it were to have
sub-TLV of type=124 (0x7c) with value 'y', it would be encoded as
007B 000C 7800 0000 007C 0001 7900 0000.
</t>
<t>In this section, the following special notation is used:
<list>
<t>.. = octet string concatenation operation.</t>
<t>H(x) = non-cryptographic hash function specified by DNCP
profile. </t>
</list>
</t>
<section title="Request TLVs" anchor="tlv-request">
<section anchor="req-net-state" title="Request Network State TLV">
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: REQ-NETWORK-STATE (1) | Length: >= 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
</artwork>
</figure>
<t>This TLV is used to request response with a <xref
target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref> and all <xref
target="node-state">Node State TLVs</xref> (without node
data).</t>
</section>
<section anchor="req-node-state" title="Request Node State TLV">
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: REQ-NODE-STATE (2) | Length: > 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Node Identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
</artwork>
</figure>
<t>This TLV is used to request a <xref target="node-state">
Node State TLV</xref> (including node data) for the node
with the matching node identifier.</t>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Data TLVs" anchor="tlv-data">
<section anchor="endpoint" title="Node Endpoint TLV">
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: NODE-ENDPOINT (3) | Length: > 4 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Node Identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Endpoint Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
</artwork>
</figure>
<t>This TLV identifies both the local node's node identifier, as
well as the particular endpoint's endpoint identifier.
<xref target="dt" /> specifies when it is sent.</t>
</section>
<section anchor="net-state" title="Network State TLV">
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: NETWORK-STATE (4) | Length: > 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| H(sequence number of node 1 .. H(node data of node 1) .. |
| .. sequence number of node N .. H(node data of node N)) |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
</artwork>
</figure>
<t>This TLV contains the current network state hash calculated by its
sender (<xref target="hash-tree" /> describes the algorithm).</t>
</section>
<section anchor="node-state" title="Node State TLV">
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: NODE-STATE (5) | Length: > 8 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Node Identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Sequence Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Milliseconds Since Origination |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| H(Node Data) |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| (optionally) Node Data (a set of nested TLVs) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
</artwork>
</figure>
<t>This TLV represents the local node's knowledge about the
published state of a node in the DNCP network identified by the
Node Identifier field in the TLV. </t>
<t>Every node, including the node publishing the node data, MUST
update the Milliseconds Since Origination whenever it sends a
Node State TLV based on when the node estimates the data was
originally published. This is, e.g., to ensure that any relative
timestamps contained within the published node data can be
correctly offset and interpreted. Ultimately, what is provided is
just an approximation, as transmission delays are not accounted
for. </t>
<t>Absent any changes, if the originating node notices that the
32-bit milliseconds since origination value would be close to
overflow (greater than 2^32-2^16), the node MUST re-publish its
TLVs even if there is no change. In other words, absent any other
changes, the TLV set MUST be re-published roughly every 48
days.</t>
<t>The actual node data of the node may be included within the
TLV as well in the optional Node Data field.
The set of TLVs MUST be strictly ordered based on ascending
binary content (including TLV type and length). This enables,
e.g., efficient state delta processing and no-copy indexing by
TLV type by the recipient.
The Node Data content MUST be passed along exactly as it was
received. It SHOULD be also verified on receipt that the locally
calculated H(Node Data) matches the content of the field within
the TLV, and if the hash differs, the TLV SHOULD be ignored.</t>
<!-- SB: this paragraph is essentially duplicate with L 570ff, so
normative language should match. or maybe change this to xref? -->
</section>
</section>
<section title="Data TLVs within Node State TLV" anchor="tlv-state">
<t>These TLVs are published by the DNCP nodes, and therefore only
encoded in the Node Data field of Node State TLVs. If encountered
outside Node State TLV, they MUST be silently ignored.</t>
<section anchor="peer"
title="Peer TLV">
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: PEER (8) | Length: > 8 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Peer Node Identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Peer Endpoint Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| (Local) Endpoint Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
</artwork>
</figure>
<t>This TLV indicates that the node in question vouches that the
specified peer is reachable by it on the specified local
endpoint.
The presence of this TLV at least guarantees that the node
publishing it has received traffic from the peer
recently. For guaranteed up-to-date bidirectional reachability,
the existence of both nodes' matching Peer TLVs needs to be
checked. </t>
</section>
<section anchor="ka-interval"
title="Keep-Alive Interval TLV">
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: KEEP-ALIVE-INTERVAL (9) | Length: >= 8 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Endpoint Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Interval |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
</artwork>
</figure>
<t>This TLV indicates a non-default interval being used to send
keep-alives specified in <xref target="ka" />.</t>
<t>Endpoint identifier is used to identify the particular (local)
endpoint for which the interval applies on the sending node.
If 0, it applies for ALL endpoints for which no specific TLV
exists.</t>
<t>Interval specifies the interval in milliseconds at which the
node sends keep-alives. A value of zero means no keep-alives are
sent at all; in that case, some lower layer mechanism that
ensures presence of nodes MUST be available and used. </t>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="sec-trust" title="Security and Trust Management">
<t>If specified in the DNCP profile, either <xref
target="RFC6347">DTLS</xref> or <xref target="RFC5246">TLS</xref> may
be used to authenticate and encrypt either some (if specified
optional in the profile), or all unicast traffic. The following
methods for establishing trust are defined, but it is up to the DNCP
profile to specify which ones may, should or must be supported.</t>
<section title="Pre-Shared Key Based Trust Method">
<t>A PSK-based trust model is a simple security management
mechanism that allows an administrator to deploy devices to an
existing network by configuring them with a pre-defined key,
similar to the configuration of an administrator password or
WPA-key. Although limited in nature it is useful to provide a
user-friendly security mechanism for smaller networks. </t>
</section>
<section title="PKI Based Trust Method">
<t>A PKI-based trust-model enables more advanced management
capabilities at the cost of increased complexity and
bootstrapping effort. It however allows trust to be managed in a
centralized manner and is therefore useful for larger networks
with a need for an authoritative trust management.</t>
</section>
<section title="Certificate Based Trust Consensus Method">
<t>For some scenarios - such as bootstrapping a mostly unmanaged
network - the methods described above may not provide a desirable
tradeoff between security and user experience. This section
includes guidance for implementing an <xref target="RFC7435">
opportunistic security</xref> method which DNCP profiles can build
upon and adapt for their specific requirements.</t>
<t>The certificate-based consensus model is designed to be a
compromise between trust management effort and flexibility. It is
based on X.509-certificates and allows each DNCP node to provide a
trust verdict on any other certificate and a consensus is found to
determine whether a node using this certificate or any
certificate signed by it is to be trusted. </t>
<t>A DNCP node not using this security method MUST ignore all
announced trust verdicts and MUST NOT announce any such verdicts
by itself, i.e., any other normative language in this subsection
does not apply to it.</t>
<t>The current effective trust verdict for any certificate is
defined as the one with the highest priority from all trust
verdicts announced for said certificate at the time.</t>
<section title="Trust Verdicts">
<t>Trust verdicts are statements of DNCP nodes about the
trustworthiness of X.509-certificates. There are 5 possible
trust verdicts in order of ascending priority:
<list>
<t>0 (Neutral): no trust verdict exists but the DNCP network
should determine one.</t>
<t>1 (Cached Trust): the last known effective trust verdict was
Configured or Cached Trust.</t>
<t>2 (Cached Distrust): the last known effective trust verdict
was Configured or Cached Distrust.</t>
<t>3 (Configured Trust): trustworthy based upon an external
ceremony or configuration.</t>
<t>4 (Configured Distrust): not trustworthy based upon an
external ceremony or configuration.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
Trust verdicts are differentiated in 3 groups:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Configured verdicts are used to announce explicit
trust verdicts a node has based on any external trust
bootstrap or predefined relation a node has formed with a
given certificate.</t>
<t>Cached verdicts are used to retain the last known trust
state in case all nodes with configured verdicts about a
given certificate have been disconnected or turned off.</t>
<t>The Neutral verdict is used to announce a new node
intending to join the network so a final verdict for it can
be found.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
The current effective trust verdict for any certificate is
defined as the one with the highest priority within the set of
trust verdicts announced for the certificate in the DNCP
network.
A node MUST be trusted for participating in the DNCP network if
and only if the current effective trust verdict for its own
certificate or any one in its certificate hierarchy is (Cached
or Configured) Trust and none of the certificates in its
hierarchy have an effective trust verdict of (Cached or
Configured) Distrust.
In case a node has a configured verdict, which is different
from the current effective trust verdict for a certificate, the
current effective trust verdict takes precedence in deciding
trustworthiness. Despite that, the node still retains and
announces its configured verdict.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Trust Cache">
<t>Each node SHOULD maintain a trust cache containing the current
effective trust verdicts for all certificates currently announced
in the DNCP network. This cache is used as a backup of the last
known state in case there is no node announcing a configured
verdict for a known certificate. It SHOULD be saved to a
non-volatile memory at reasonable time intervals to survive a
reboot or power outage.</t>
<t>Every time a node (re)joins the network or detects the change
of an effective trust verdict for any certificate, it will
synchronize its cache, i.e., store new effective trust verdicts
overwriting any previously cached verdicts. Configured verdicts
are stored in the cache as their respective cached counterparts.
Neutral verdicts are never stored and do not override existing
cached verdicts.</t>
</section>
<section title="Announcement of Verdicts">
<t>A node SHOULD always announce any configured trust verdicts it
has established by itself, and it MUST do so if announcing the
configured trust verdict leads to a change in the current
effective trust verdict for the respective certificate. In
absence of configured verdicts, it MUST announce cached trust
verdicts it has stored in its trust cache, if one of the
following conditions applies:
<list style="symbols">
<t>The stored trust verdict is Cached Trust and the current
effective trust verdict for the certificate is Neutral or does
not exist.</t>
<t>The stored trust verdict is Cached Distrust and the current
effective trust verdict for the certificate is Cached
Trust.</t>
</list>
A node rechecks these conditions whenever it detects changes of
announced trust verdicts anywhere in the network.
</t>
<t>Upon encountering a node with a hierarchy of certificates for
which there is no effective trust verdict, a node adds a Neutral
Trust-Verdict-TLV to its node data for all certificates found in
the hierarchy, and publishes it until an effective trust verdict
different from Neutral can be found for any of the certificates,
or a reasonable amount of time (10 minutes is suggested) with no
reaction and no further authentication attempts has passed. Such
trust verdicts SHOULD also be limited in rate and number to
prevent denial-of-service attacks.</t>
<t>Trust verdicts are announced using Trust-Verdict TLVs:
<figure>
<artwork>
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: Trust-Verdict (10) | Length: > 36 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Verdict | (reserved) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| |
| |
| SHA-256 Fingerprint |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Common Name |
</artwork>
</figure>
<list>
<t>Verdict represents the numerical index of the trust
verdict.</t>
<t>(reserved) is reserved for future additions and MUST be set
to 0 when creating TLVs and ignored when parsing them.</t>
<t>SHA-256 Fingerprint contains the <xref
target="RFC6234">SHA-256</xref> hash value of the certificate
in DER-format.</t>
<t>Common Name contains the variable-length (1-64 bytes) common
name of the certificate.</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Bootstrap Ceremonies">
<t>The following non-exhaustive list of methods describes
possible ways to establish trust relationships between
DNCP nodes and node certificates. Trust establishment is a
two-way process in which the existing network must trust the
newly added node and the newly added node must trust at least
one of its peer nodes.
It is therefore necessary that both the newly added node and an
already trusted node perform such a ceremony to successfully
introduce a node into the DNCP network. In all cases an
administrator MUST be provided with external means to identify
the node belonging to a certificate based on its fingerprint
and a meaningful common name.</t>
<section title="Trust by Identification">
<t>A node implementing certificate-based trust MUST provide
an interface to retrieve the current set of effective trust
verdicts, fingerprints and names of all certificates currently
known and set configured trust verdicts to be
announced. Alternatively it MAY provide a companion DNCP node
or application with these capabilities with which it has a
pre-established trust relationship.</t>
</section>
<section title="Preconfigured Trust">
<t>A node MAY be preconfigured to trust a certain set of
node or CA certificates. However such trust relationships
MUST NOT result in unwanted or unrelated trust for nodes not
intended to be run inside the same network (e.g., all other
devices by the same manufacturer).</t>
</section>
<section title="Trust on Button Press">
<t>A node MAY provide a physical or virtual interface to put
one or more of its internal network interfaces temporarily into
a mode in which it trusts the certificate of the first
DNCP node it can successfully establish a connection
with.</t>
</section>
<section title="Trust on First Use">
<t>A node which is not associated with any other DNCP node MAY
trust the certificate of the first DNCP node it can
successfully establish a connection with. This method MUST NOT
be used when the node has already associated with any other
DNCP node.</t>
</section>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="profile-bits" title="DNCP Profile-Specific Definitions">
<t>Each DNCP profile MUST specify the following aspects:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Unicast and optionally multicast transport protocol(s) to be
used. If multicast-based node and status discovery is desired, a
datagram-based transport supporting multicast has to be available.
</t>
<t>How the chosen transport(s) are secured: Not at all, optionally
or always with the TLS scheme defined here using one or more of the
methods, or with something else. If the links with DNCP nodes can
be sufficiently secured or isolated, it is possible to run DNCP in
a secure manner without using any form of authentication or
encryption.</t>
<t>Transport protocols' parameters such as port numbers to be used,
or multicast address to be used. Unicast, multicast, and secure
unicast may each require different parameters, if applicable. </t>
<t>When receiving TLVs, what sort of TLVs are ignored in addition -
as specified in <xref target="reception" /> - e.g., for security
reasons. While the security of the node data published within the
Node State TLVs is already ensured by the base specification (if
secure mode is enabled, Node State TLVs are sent only via unicast
as multicast ones are ignored on receipt), if a profile adds TLVs
that are sent outside the node data, a profile should indicate
whether or not those TLVs should be ignored if they are received
via multicast or non-secured unicast.
A DNCP profile may define the following DNCP TLVs to be safely
ignored:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Anything received over multicast, except <xref
target="endpoint">Node Endpoint TLV</xref> and <xref
target="net-state">Network State TLV</xref>.
</t>
<t>Any TLVs received over unreliable unicast or multicast at too
high rate; Trickle will ensure eventual convergence given the
rate slows down at some point.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>How to deal with node identifier collision as described in <xref
target="reception" />. Main options are either for one or both
nodes to assign new node identifiers to themselves, or to notify
someone about a fatal error condition in the DNCP network.</t>
<t>Imin, Imax and k ranges to be suggested for implementations to
be used in the Trickle algorithm. The Trickle algorithm does not
require these to be the same across all implementations for it to
work, but similar orders of magnitude helps implementations of a DNCP
profile to behave more consistently and to facilitate estimation of
lower and upper bounds for convergence behavior of the network.</t>
<t>Hash function H(x) to be used, and how many bits of the output
are actually used. The chosen hash function is used to handle both
hashing of node data, and to produce network state hash, which is a
hash of node data hashes. SHA-256 defined in <xref
target="RFC6234" /> is the recommended default choice, but a
non-cryptographic hash function could be used as well.
If there is a hash collision in the network state hash, the network
will effectively be partitioned to partitions that believe that
they are up to date, but actually no longer converged. The network
will converge either when some node data anywhere in the network
changes, or when conflicting Node State TLVs get transmitted across
the partition (either caused by <xref
target="trickle-updates">Trickle-Driven Status Updates</xref> or as
part of the <xref target="reception">Processing of Received
TLVs</xref>).
If a node publishes node data with a hash that collides with any
previously published node data, the update may not be (fully)
propagated and the old version of node data may be used
instead.</t>
<t>DNCP_NODE_IDENTIFIER_LENGTH: The fixed length of a node
identifier (in bytes).</t>
<t>Whether to send keep-alives, and if so, whether per-endpoint
(requires multicast transport), or per-peer. Keep-alive has also
associated parameters:
<list style="symbols">
<t>DNCP_KEEPALIVE_INTERVAL: How often keep-alives are to be
sent by default (if enabled).</t>
<t>DNCP_KEEPALIVE_MULTIPLIER: How many times the
DNCP_KEEPALIVE_INTERVAL (or peer-supplied keep-alive interval
value) a node may not be heard from to be considered still
valid. This is just a default used in absence of any other
configuration information, or particular per-endpoint
configuration.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>Whether to support <xref target="dense-multicast">dense
multicast-enabled link optimization</xref> or not.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>For some guidance on choosing transport and security options,
please see <xref target="profile-guidance" />.</t>
</section>
<section title="Security Considerations">
<t>DNCP-based protocols may use multicast to indicate DNCP state
changes and for keep-alive purposes. However, no actual published
data TLVs will be sent across that channel. Therefore an attacker may
only learn hash values of the state within DNCP and may be able to
trigger unicast synchronization attempts between nodes on a local
link this way. A DNCP node MUST therefore rate-limit its reactions
to multicast packets.</t>
<t>When using DNCP to bootstrap a network, PKI based solutions may have
issues when validating certificates due to potentially unavailable
accurate time, or due to inability to use the network to either check
Certificate Revocation Lists or perform on-line validation.</t>
<t>The Certificate-based trust consensus mechanism defined in this
document allows for a consenting revocation, however in case of a
compromised device the trust cache may be poisoned before the actual
revocation happens allowing the distrusted device to rejoin the network
using a different identity. Stopping such an attack might require
physical intervention and flushing of the trust caches. </t>
</section>
<section anchor="iana" title="IANA Considerations">
<t>IANA should set up a registry for the (decimal 16-bit) "DNCP TLV
Types" under "Distributed Node Consensus Protocol (DNCP)", with the
following initial contents:
([RFC Editor: please remove] ideally as http://www.iana.org/assignments/dncp-registry)
<list>
<t>0: Reserved</t>
<t>1: Request network state</t>
<t>2: Request node state</t>
<t>3: Node endpoint</t>
<t>4: Network state</t>
<t>5: Node state</t>
<t>6: Reserved (was: Custom)</t>
<t>7: Reserved (was: Fragment count)</t>
<t>8: Peer</t>
<t>9: Keep-alive interval</t>
<t>10: Trust-Verdict</t>
<t>11-31: Free - policy of <xref target="RFC5226">standards action</xref> should be used</t>
<t>32-511: Reserved for per-DNCP profile use</t>
<t>512-767: Free - policy of <xref target="RFC5226">standards action</xref> should be used</t>
<t>768-1023: <xref target="RFC5226">Private use</xref></t>
<t>1024-65535: Reserved for future protocol evolution (for example,
DNCP version 2)</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
</middle>
<back>
<references title="Normative references">
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.2119.xml"?>
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.6206.xml"?>
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.6234.xml"?>
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.5226.xml"?>
</references>
<references title="Informative references">
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.3493.xml"?>
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.3315.xml"?>
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.6347.xml"?>
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.5246.xml"?>
<?rfc include="reference.RFC.7435.xml"?>
<?rfc include="reference.I-D.draft-ietf-homenet-prefix-assignment-08"?>
</references>
<section title="Alternative Modes of Operation">
<t>Beyond what is described in the main text, the protocol allows for
other uses. These are provided as examples.</t>
<section title="Read-only Operation">
<t>If a node uses just a single endpoint and does not need to
publish any TLVs, full DNCP node functionality is not
required. Such limited node can acquire and maintain view of the
TLV space by implementing the processing logic as specified in
<xref target="reception" />. Such node would not need Trickle,
peer-maintenance or even keep-alives at all, as the DNCP nodes' use
of it would guarantee eventual receipt of network state hashes, and
synchronization of node data, even in presence of unreliable
transport.</t>
</section>
<section title="Forwarding Operation">
<t>If a node with a pair of endpoints does not need to publish any
TLVs, it can detect (for example) nodes with the highest node
identifier on each of the endpoints (if any). Any TLVs received from
one of them would be forwarded verbatim as unicast to the other node
with highest node identifier.</t>
<t>Any tinkering with the TLVs would remove guarantees of this
scheme working; however passive monitoring would obviously be fine.
This type of simple forwarding cannot be chained, as it does not send
anything proactively.</t>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="profile-guidance" title="DNCP Profile Additional Guidance">
<t>This appendix explains implications of design choices made
when specifying DNCP profile to use particular transport or security
options.</t>
<section title="Unicast Transport - UDP or TCP?">
<t>The node data published by a DNCP node is limited to 64KB due to
the 16-bit size of the length field of the TLV it is published
within. Some transport choices may decrease this limit; if using
e.g. UDP datagrams for unicast transport the upper bound of node
data size is whatever the nodes and the underlying network can pass
to each other as DNCP does not define its own fragmentation scheme.
A profile which chooses UDP has to be limited to small node data
(e.g. somewhat smaller than IPv6 default MTU if using IPv6), or
specify a minimum which all nodes have to support. Even then, if
using non-link-local communications, there is some concern about
what middleboxes do to fragmented packets. Therefore, the
use of stream transport such as TCP is probably a good idea if
either non-link-local communication is desired, or fragmentation is
expected to cause problems.</t>
<t>TCP also provides some other facilities, such as a relatively
long built-in keep-alive which in conjunction with connection
closes occurring from eventual failed retransmissions may be
sufficient to avoid the use of in-protocol keep-alive defined in
<xref target="ka" />. Additionally it is reliable, so there is no
need for Trickle on such unicast connections.</t>
<t>The major downside of using TCP instead of UDP with DNCP-based
profiles lies in the loss of control over the time at which TLVs
are received; while unreliable UDP datagrams also have some delay,
TLVs within reliable stream transport may be delayed significantly
due to retransmissions. This is not a problem if no relative time
dependent information is stored within the TLVs in the DNCP-based
protocol; for such a protocol, TCP is a reasonable choice for
unicast transport if it is available.</t>
</section>
<section title="(Optional) Multicast Transport">
<t>Multicast is needed for dynamic peer discovery and to trigger
unicast exchanges; for that, unreliable datagram transport
(=typically UDP) is the only transport option defined within this
specification, although DNCP-based protocols may themselves define
some other transport or peer discovery mechanism (e.g. based on
mDNS or DNS). </t>
<t>If multicast is used, a well-known address should be specified,
and for e.g. IPv6 respectively the desired address scopes. In most
cases link-local and possibly site-local are useful scopes.</t>
</section>
<section title="(Optional) Transport Security">
<t>In terms of provided security, DTLS and TLS are equivalent; they
also consume similar amount of state on the devices. While TLS is
on top of a stream protocol, using DTLS also requires
relatively long session caching within the DTLS layer to avoid
expensive re-authentication/authorization steps if and when any
state within the DNCP network changes or per-peer keep-alive (if
enabled) is sent.</t>
<t>TLS implementations (at the time of the writing of the
specification) seem more mature and available (as open source) than
DTLS ones. This may be due to a long history of use with HTTPS.</t>
<t>Some libraries seem not to support multiplexing between insecure
and secure communication on the same port, so specifying distinct
ports for secured and unsecured communication may be beneficial.</t>
</section>
</section>
<section anchor="profile-example" title="Example Profile">
<t>This is the DNCP profile of SHSP, an experimental (and for the
purposes of this document fictional) home automation protocol. The
protocol itself is used to make key-value store published by each
of the nodes available to all other nodes for distributed monitoring
and control of a home infrastructure. It defines only one additional
TLV type: a key=value TLV which contains a single key=value
assignment for publication.
<list style="symbols">
<t>Unicast transport: IPv6 TCP on port EXAMPLE-P1 since only absolute
timestamps are used within the key=value data and since it focuses
primarily on Linux-based nodes which support both protocols well.
Connections from and to non-link-local addresses are ignored to
avoid exposing this protocol outside the secure links.</t>
<t>Multicast transport: IPv6 UDP on port EXAMPLE-P2 to link-local
scoped multicast address ff02:EXAMPLE. At least one node per link
in the home is assumed to facilitate node discovery without
depending on any other infrastructure.</t>
<t>Security: None. It is to be used only on trusted links (WPA2-x
wireless, physically secure wired links).</t>
<t>Additional TLVs to be ignored: None. No DNCP security is specified,
and no new TLVs are defined outside of node data.</t>
<t>Node identifier length (DNCP_NODE_IDENTIFIER_LENGTH): 32 bits
that are randomly generated.</t>
<t>Node identifier collision handling: Pick new random node
identifier.</t>
<t>Trickle parameters: Imin = 200ms, Imax = 7, k = 1. It means at
least one multicast per link in 25 seconds in stable state (0.2 *
2^7).</t>
<t>Hash function H(x) + length: SHA-256, only 128 bits
used. Relatively fast, and 128 bits should be plenty to prevent
random conflicts (64 bits would most likely be sufficient, too).</t>
<t>No <xref target="ka">in-protocol keep-alives</xref>; TCP
keep-alive is to be used. In practice TCP keep-alive is seldom
encountered anyway as changes in network state cause packets to be
sent on the unicast connections, and those that fail sufficiently
many retransmissions are dropped much before keep-alive actually
would fire. </t>
<t>No support for <xref target="dense-multicast">dense
multicast-enabled link optimization</xref>; SHSP is a simple
protocol for few nodes (network-wide, not even to mention on a
single link), and therefore would not provide any benefit.</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Some Questions and Answers [RFC Editor: please remove]">
<t>Q: 32-bit endpoint id?</t>
<t>A: Here, it would save 32 bits per peer if it was 16 bits (and
less is not realistic). However, TLVs defined elsewhere would not
seem to even gain that much on average. 32 bits is also used for
ifindex in various operating systems, making for simpler
implementation.</t>
<t>Q: Why have topology information at all?</t>
<t>A: It is an alternative to the more traditional seq#/TTL-based flooding
schemes. In steady state, there is no need to, e.g., re-publish every now
and then.</t>
</section>
<section title="Changelog [RFC Editor: please remove]">
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-10:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Added profile guidance section, as well as example profile.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-09:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Reserved 1024+ TLV types for future versions (=versioning
mechanism); private use section moved from 192-255 to 512-767.</t>
<t>Added applicability statement and clarified some text based on
reviews.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-08:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Removed fragmentation as it is somewhat underspecified and
unimplemented. It may be specified in some future extension draft
or new version of DNCP.</t>
<t>Added generic sub-TLV extensibility mechanism.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-06:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Removed custom TLV.</t>
<t>Made keep-alive multipliers local implementation choice, profiles
just provide guidance on sane default value.</t>
<t>Removed the DNCP_GRACE_INTERVAL as it is really
implementation choice.</t>
<t>Simplified the suggested structures in data model.</t>
<t>Reorganized the document and provided an overview section.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-04:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Added mandatory rate limiting for network state requests, and
optional slightly faster convergence mechanism by including current
local network state in the remote network state requests.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-03:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Renamed connection -> endpoint.</t>
<t>!!! Backwards incompatible change: Renumbered TLVs, and got rid
of node data TLV; instead, node data TLV's contents are optionally
within node state TLV.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-02:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Changed DNCP "messages" into series of TLV streams, allowing
optimized round-trip saving synchronization.</t>
<t>Added fragmentation support for bigger node data and for chunking
in absence of reliable L2 and L3 fragmentation.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-01:
<list style="symbols">
<t>Fixed keep-alive semantics to consider unicast requests also
updates of most recently consistent, and added proactive unicast
request to ensure even inconsistent keep-alive messages eventually
triggering consistency timestamp update.</t>
<t>Facilitated (simple) read-only clients by making Node Connection
TLV optional if just using DNCP for read-only purposes.</t>
<t>Added text describing how to deal with "dense" networks, but left
actual numbers and mechanics up to DNCP profiles and (local)
configurations.</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-00: Split from pre-version of
draft-ietf-homenet-hncp-03 generic parts. Changes that affect
implementations:
<list style="symbols">
<t>TLVs were renumbered.</t>
<t>TLV length does not include header (=-4). This facilitates,
e.g., use of DHCPv6 option parsing libraries (same encoding), and
reduces complexity (no need to handle error values of length less
than 4).</t>
<t>Trickle is reset only when locally calculated network state hash
is changes, not as remote different network state hash is seen. This
prevents, e.g., attacks by multicast with one multicast packet to force
Trickle reset on every interface of every node on a link.</t>
<t>Instead of 'ping', use 'keep-alive' (optional) for dead peer
detection. Different message used!</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Draft Source [RFC Editor: please remove]">
<t>As usual, this draft is available at <eref
target="https://github.com/fingon/ietf-drafts/">
https://github.com/fingon/ietf-drafts/</eref>
in source format (with nice Makefile too). Feel free to send comments
and/or pull requests if and when you have changes to it! </t>
</section>
<section title="Acknowledgements">
<t>Thanks to Ole Troan, Pierre Pfister, Mark Baugher, Mark Townsley,
Juliusz Chroboczek, Jiazi Yi, Mikael Abrahamsson, Brian Carpenter,
Thomas Clausen, DENG Hui and Margaret Cullen for their contributions
to the draft.</t>
<t>Thanks to Kaiwen Jin and Xavier Bonnetain for their related
research work.</t>
</section>
</back>
</rfc>
| PAFTECH AB 2003-2026 | 2026-04-22 22:31:24 |