RMT T. Paila Internet-Draft Nokia Expires: January 30, 2004 M. Luby Digital Fountain R. Lehtonen TeliaSonera V. Roca INRIA Rhone-Alpes August 2003 FLUTE - File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport draft-ietf-rmt-flute-02.txt Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http:// www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on January 30, 2004. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved. Abstract This document defines FLUTE, a protocol for the unidirectional delivery of files over the Internet, which is particularly suited to multicast networks. The specification builds on Asynchronous Layered Coding, the base protocol designed for massively scalable multicast distribution. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 1] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. File delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.1 File delivery session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3.2 File Delivery Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.3 Dynamics of FDT Instances within file delivery session . . . 8 3.4 Structure of FDT Instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3.4.1 Format of FDT Instance Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3.4.2 Syntax of FDT Instance Payload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3.5 Multiplexing of files within a file delivery session . . . . 12 4. Channels, congestion control and timing . . . . . . . . . . 13 5. Delivering FEC Object Transmission Information . . . . . . . 14 5.1 Use of EXT_FTI for delivery of FEC Object Transmission Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.1.1 General EXT_FTI format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 5.1.2 FEC Encoding ID specific formats for EXT_FTI . . . . . . . . 15 5.2 Use of FDT for delivery of FEC Object Transmission Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 6. Describing file delivery sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 7. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Normative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Informative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 A. Receiver operation (informative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 B. Example of FDT Instance Payload (informative) . . . . . . . 28 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 29 Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 2] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 1. Introduction This document defines FLUTE, a protocol for unidirectional delivery of files over the Internet. The specification builds on Asynchronous Layered Coding (ALC), version 1 [3], the base protocol designed for massively scalable multicast distribution. ALC defines transport of arbitrary binary objects. For file delivery applications mere transport of objects is not enough, however. The end systems need to know what do the objects actually represent. This document specifies a technique called FLUTE - a mechanism for signalling and mapping the properties of files to concepts of ALC in a way that allows receivers to assign those parameters for received objects. Consequently, throughout this document the term 'file' relates to an 'object' as discussed in ALC. Although this specification frequently makes use of multicast addressing as an example, the techniques are similarly applicable for use with unicast addressing. This specification answers the following questions: * How does an ALC session represent a file delivery session? * How can the properties of delivered files be signaled in-band within the file delivery session? * How to describe the file delivery session, its transport details and its schedule in a general case? * What is the internal structure of file delivery sessions wherein several files can be delivered within a single session? This specification is structured as follows. Chapter 3 begins by defining the concept of the file delivery session. Following that it introduces the File Delivery Table that forms the core part of this specification. Further, it discusses multiplexing issues of transport objects within a file delivery session. Chapter 4 describes the use of congestion control and channels with FLUTE. Chapter 5 defines how the FEC Object Transmission Information is to be delivered within a file delivery session. Chapter 6 defines the required parameters for describing file delivery sessions in a general case. Chapter 7 outlines security considerations regarding file delivery with FLUTE. Last, there are two informative appendixes. The first appendix gives an example of File Delivery Table. The second appendix describes an envisioned receiver operation for the receiver of the file delivery session. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 3] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 2. Conventions used in this document The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [2]. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 4] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 3. File delivery Asynchronous Layered Coding is a protocol designed for delivery of arbitrary binary objects. It is especially suitable for massively scalable, unidirectional, multicast distribution. ALC provides the basic transport for FLUTE. In this specification the above-mentioned arbitrary binary objects are files. The core of this specification is to define how the properties of the files are carried in-band together with the delivered files. As an example, let us consider a file referred by "www.ex.com/docs/ file.txt". Using the example, the following properties describe the properties that need to be conveyed by the file delivery protocol. * Location of the file, expressed as either absolute or relative URL. In the above example: "www.ex.com/docs/file.txt" * File name (usually, this can be concluded from the URL). In the above example: "file.txt" * File type, expressed as MIME media type (usually, this can also be concluded from the extension of the file name). In the above example: "text/plain" * File size, expressed as bytes. In the above example (imaginary): "5200" * Content encoding of the file, within transport. In the above example, the file could be encoded using ZLIB [10]. * Security properties of the file such as digital signatures, message digestives, etc. 3.1 File delivery session ALC is a protocol instantiation of Layered Coding Transport building block (LCT) [4]. Thus ALC inherits the session concept of LCT. In this document we will use concept ALC/LCT session to collectively denote the interchangeable terms ALC session and LCT session. An ALC/LCT session consists of a set of logically grouped ALC/LCT channels associated with a single sender sending packets with ALC/LCT headers for one or more objects. An ALC/LCT channel is defined by the combination of a sender and an address associated with the channel by the sender. A receiver joins a channel to start receiving Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 5] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 the data packets sent to the channel by the sender, and a receiver leaves a channel to stop receiving data packets from the channel. One of the fields carried in the ALC/LCT header is the Transport Session Identifier (TSI). The TSI is scoped by the source IP address, and the (source IP address, TSI) pair uniquely identifies a session, i.e., the receiver uses this pair carried in each packet to uniquely identify from which session the packet was received. In case multiple objects are carried within a session another field within the ALC/LCT header, the Transport Object Identifier (TOI), identifies from which object within the session the data in the packet was generated. Note that each object is associated with a unique TOI within the scope of a session. When FLUTE is used for file delivery over ALC the following rules apply: * The ALC/LCT session is called file delivery session. * The ALC/LCT concept of 'transport object' denotes either a 'file' or a 'File Delivery Table Instance (section 3.2)' * The TOI field MUST be used in ALC/LCT packets. * The TOI value '0' is reserved for delivery of File Delivery Table * Each file in a file delivery session MUST be associated with a TOI (>0) in the scope of that session. 3.2 File Delivery Table The File Delivery Table (FDT) provides a means to describe various attributes associated with files that are to be delivered within the file delivery session. Such attributes are for example the following. Attributes related to the delivery of file: - TOI value that represents the file - FEC Instance ID - FEC Object Transmission Information - Aggregate rate of sending packets to all channels Attributes related to the file itself: Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 6] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 - Location of file - Name of file - MIME media type of file - Size of file - Encoding of file - Message digest of file Some of these attributes are mandatory, others optional, as defined in section 3.4.2. Logically, the FDT is a set of file description entries. Each file description entry is identified by a unique identifier in the given session. In FLUTE, this identifier is the TOI of an instance of the file. Each file description entry consequently contains one or more descriptors that map the above-mentioned attributes to the identified file. At minimum the mapping from TOI to URL value MUST be given. Each file delivery session MUST have an FDT that is local to the given session. The FDT SHOULD provide mapping for every TOI appearing within the session. Handling of unmapped TOIs (those that are not resolved by the FDT) is out of scope of this specification. Within the file delivery session the FDT is delivered as FDT Instances. An FDT Instance contains one or more file description entries of the FDT. Any FDT Instance can be equal to, a subset of, a superset of, or complement any other FDT Instance. A certain FDT Instance may be repeated several times during a session, even after subsequent FDT Instances (with higher FDT Instance ID numbers) have been transmitted. In minimum the FDT Instance contains a single file description entry. In maximum the FDT Instance contains the complete FDT of the file delivery session. A receiver of the file delivery session keeps an FDT database for received file description entries. The receiver maintains the database, for example, upon reception of FDT Instances. Thus, at any given time the contents of the FDT database represent the receiver's current view of the FDT of the file delivery session. Since each receiver behaves independently of other receivers, it SHOULD NOT be assumed that the contents of the FDT database are the same for all the receivers of a given file delivery session. Since FDT database is an abstract concept, the structure and the maintaining of the FDT database are left to individual Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 7] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 implementations and are thus out of scope of this specification. 3.3 Dynamics of FDT Instances within file delivery session The following rules define the dynamics of the FDT Instances within a file delivery session: * Within a file delivery session, the complete FDT MUST be sent at least once. The complete FDT is defined as an FDT that has file description entry for every file sent within the file delivery session. In minimum, each file description entry contains the mapping to TOI and the URL. * An FDT Instance MAY appear in any part of the file delivery session and even multiplexed with other files or other FDT Instances. * The TOI value of '0' MUST be reserved for delivery of FDT Instances. The use of other TOI values for FDT Instances is outside the scope of this specification. * FDT Instance is identified by the use of a new fixed length LCT Header Extension EXT_FDT (defined later in this chapter). Each FDT Instance is uniquely identified within the file delivery session by its FDT Instance ID. Any ALC/LCT packet carrying FDT Instance (indicated by TOI = 0) MUST include EXT_FDT. * It is RECOMMENDED that FDT Instance that contains the file description entry for a file is sent prior to the sending of the described file within a file delivery session. * Within a file delivery session, any TOI MAY be described more than once. An example: previous FDT Instance 0 describes TOI of value '3'. Now, subsequent FDT Instances can either keep TOI '3' unmodified on the table, not to include it, complement the description or modify the description. In the last case the receiver interpretation of such a situation is specific to implementation and therefore is left out of scope of this specification. * An FDT Instance is valid until its expiration time. The expiry time is expressed within the FDT Instance payload as a 32 bit Network Time Protocol (NTP) time value in seconds. * The receiver behaviour upon expiration of the FDT Instance is out of scope of this specification. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 8] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 * A sender MUST use an expiry time in the future upon creation of an FDT Instance. * Any FEC Encoding ID MAY be used for the sending of FDT Instances. The default is to use FEC Encoding ID 0 for the sending of FDT Instances. 3.4 Structure of FDT Instance The FDT Instance consists of two parts: FDT Instance Header and FDT Instance Payload. The FDT Instance Header is a new fixed length LCT Header extension (EXT_FDT). It contains the FDT Instance ID that uniquely identifies FDT instances within a file delivery session. The FDT Instance Header is placed in the same way as any other LCT extension header. There MAY be other LCT extension headers in use. The LCT extension headers are followed by the FEC Payload ID, and finally the FDT Instance Payload which contains one or more file description entries. The FDT Instance Payload MAY span over several ALC packets - the number of ALC packets is indicated by the FEC Object Transmission Information associated to this FDT Instance. The FDT Instance Header is carried in each ALC packet carrying FDT Instance. The FDT Instance Header is identical for all the ALC/LCT packets carrying parts of a particular FDT Instance. The overall format of ALC/LCT packets carrying FDT Instance is depicted in the Figure 1 below. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | UDP header | | | +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ | Default LCT header | | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | LCT header extensions (EXT_FDT, EXT_FTI, etc.) | | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | FEC Payload ID | | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Encoding Symbol(s) of FDT Instance Payload | | ... | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Figure 1 - Overall FDT Packet Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 9] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 3.4.1 Format of FDT Instance Header FDT Instance Header (EXT_FDT) is a new fixed length, ALC PI specific LCT header extension [4]. The Header Extension Type (HET) for the extension is 192. Its format is defined below: 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | HET = 192 | FDT Instance ID | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ FDT Instance ID, 24 bits: For each file delivery session the numbering of FDT Instances starts from '0' and is incremented by exactly one for each subsequent FDT Instance. After reaching the maximum value (2^24-1), the numbering starts again from '0'. When wraparound from 2^24-1 to 0 occurs, 0 is considered higher than 2^24-1. Receiver handling of wraparound and other special situations (for example, missing FDT Instance IDs resulting in longer increments than one) is left out of this specification to individual implementations of FLUTE. 3.4.2 Syntax of FDT Instance Payload The FDT Instance Payload contains file description entries that provide the mapping functionality described in 3.2 above. The FDT Instance Payload is an XML structure that has a single root element "FDT-Payload". The "FDT-Payload" element MUST contain "Expires" attribute, which tells the expiry time of the FDT Instance Payload. In addition, the "FDT-Payload" element MAY contain "Complete" attribute (boolean), which MAY be used to signal that the given FDT Instance is the last FDT Instance to be expected on this file delivery session. For each file to be declared in the given FDT Instance there is a single file description entry in the FDT Instance Payload. Each entry is represented by element "File" which is a child element of the FDT Payload structure. The attributes of "File" element in the XML structure represent the attributes given to the file that is delivered in the file delivery session. Each "File" element MUST contain at least two attributes "TOI" and "Content-Location". "TOI" MUST be assigned a valid TOI value as described in section 3.3 above. "Content-Location" MUST be assigned a valid URL as defined in [6]. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 10] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 In addition to mandatory attributes, the "File" entity MAY contain other attributes of which the following are specifically pointed out. * If the MIME type of the file is described, attribute "Content-Type" MUST be used for the purpose as defined in [6]. * If the length of the file is described, attribute "Content-Length" MUST be used for the purpose as defined in [6]. Note that Content-Length describes the transferred object length, not the actual file size after decoding. If the actual size of the file length without any content encoding is described, attribute "Entity-Length" (value in bytes) MUST be used. * If the encoding scheme of the file is described, attribute "Content-Encoding" MUST be used for the purpose as defined in [6]. * If the MD5 message digest of the file is described, attribute "Content-MD5" MUST be used for the purpose as defined in [6]. * The FEC Object Transmission Information attributes as described in section 5.2. The following specifies the XML Schema [8][9] for FDT Instance Payload: Any XML document that conforms with the above XML Schema is a valid FDT. This way FDT provides extensibility to support private attributes within the file description entries. Those could be, for example, the attributes related to the delivery of the file (timing, packet transmission rate, etc.). In case the basic FDT XML Schema is extended in terms of new descriptors, those MUST be placed within the attributes of the element "File". It is RECOMMENDED that the new descriptors applied in the FDT are in the format of MIME fields and are either defined in HTTP/1.1 specification [6] or otherwise well-known specification. 3.5 Multiplexing of files within a file delivery session The delivered files appear as objects (identified with TOIs) within the file delivery session. All the objects, including the FDT Instances, MAY be multiplexed in any order and in parallel with each other. Especially multiple FDT Instances MAY be delivered during the session in a particular TOI. In this case, it is RECOMMENDED that the sending of a previous FDT Instance SHOULD end before the sending of the next FDT Instance starts. However, due to unexpected network conditions the FDT Instances MAY be multiplexed packetwise. In that case, the FDT Instances are uniquely identified by their FDT Instance ID carried in the EXT_FDT headers. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 12] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 4. Channels, congestion control and timing ALC/LCT has a concept of channels and congestion control. There are four scenarios FLUTE is envisioned to be applied. (a) Use a single channel and a single-rate congestion control protocol. (b) Use multiple channels and a multiple-rate congestion control protocol. In this case the FDT Instances MAY be delivered on more than one channel. (c) Use a single channel without congestion control supplied by ALC, but only when in a controlled network environment where flow/ congestion control is being provided by other means. (d) Use multiple channels without congestion control supplied by ALC, but only when in a controlled network environment where flow/ congestion control is being provided by other means. In this case the FDT Instances MAY be delivered on more than one channel. When using just one channel for a file delivery session, like in (a) and (c), the notion of 'prior' and 'after' are intuitively defined for the delivery of objects with respect to their delivery times. However, if multiple channels are used, like in (b) and (d), it is not straightforward to state that an object was delivered 'prior' to the other. An object may begin to be delivered on one or more of those channels before the delivery of a second object begins. However, the use of multiple channels/layers may complete the delivery of the second object before the first. This is not a problem when objects are delivered sequentially using a single channel. Thus, if the application of FLUTE has a mandatory or critical requirement that the first object must complete 'prior' to the second one, it is RECOMMENDED that only a single channel is used for the file delivery session. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 13] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 5. Delivering FEC Object Transmission Information FLUTE inherits the use of FEC building block [5] from ALC. When using FLUTE for file delivery over ALC the FEC Object Transmission Information MUST be delivered in-band within the file delivery session. In this chapter, two methods are specified for FLUTE for this purpose: the use of ALC specific LCT extension header EXT_FTI [3], and, the use of FDT. The receiver of file delivery session MUST support delivery of FEC Object Transmission Information using the EXT_FTI for the FDT Instances carried using TOI value 0. For the TOI values other than 0 either method MAY be applied: the use of EXT_FTI and the use of FDT. The FEC Object Transmission Information regarding a given TOI may be available from several sources. In this case, it is RECOMMENDED that the receiver of the file delivery session prioritizes the sources in the following way (in the order of decreasing priority). 1. FEC Object Transmission Information that is available in EXT_FTI. 2. FEC Object Transmission Information that is available in the FDT. 3. FEC Object Transmission Information that is available out of band. 5.1 Use of EXT_FTI for delivery of FEC Object Transmission Information As specified in [3], the EXT_FTI header extension is intended to carry in band the FEC Object Transmission Information for an object. It is left up to individual implementations to decide how frequently and in which ALC packets the EXT_FTI header extension occurs. The ALC specification does not define the format or the processing of the EXT_FTI header extension. The following sections specify EXT_FTI when used in FLUTE. In FLUTE, the FEC Encoding ID (8 bits) is carried in the Codepoint field of the ALC/LCT header. 5.1.1 General EXT_FTI format The general EXT_FTI format specifies the structure and those attributes of FEC Object Transmission Information that are applicable to any FEC Encoding ID. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 14] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | HET = 64 | HEL | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ + | Object Length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | FEC Instance ID | FEC Enc. ID Specific Format | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Header Extension Type (HET), 8 bits: 64 as defined in [3] Header Extension Length (HEL), 8 bits: The length of the whole Header Extension field, expressed in multiples of 32-bit words. This length includes the FEC Encoding ID specific format part. Object Length, 48 bits: As specified in [3]. The length of the object in bytes. FEC Instance ID, optional, 16 bits: This field is used for FEC Instance ID. It is only present if the value of FEC Encoding ID is in the range of 128-255. When the value of FEC Encoding ID is in the range of 0-127, this field is set to 0. FEC Encoding ID Specific Format: Different FEC encoding schemes will need different sets of encoding parameters. Thus, the structure and length of this field depends on FEC Encoding ID. The next sections specify structure of this field for FEC Encoding ID numbers 0, 128, 129 and 130. 5.1.2 FEC Encoding ID specific formats for EXT_FTI 5.1.2.1 FEC Encoding IDs 0, 128, and 130 FEC Encoding ID 0 is 'Compact No-Code FEC' (Fully-Specified) [7]. FEC Encoding ID 128 is 'Small Block, Large Block and Expandable FEC' Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 15] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 (Under-Specified) [5]. FEC Encoding ID 130 is 'Compact FEC' (Under-Specified) [7]. For these FEC Encoding IDs, the FEC Encoding ID specific format of EXT_FTI is defined as follows. 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ General EXT_FTI format | Encoding Symbol Length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Source Block Length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Encoding Symbol Length, 16 bits: Length of encoding symbol in bytes. Source Block Length, 32 bits The number of source symbols in a full-sized source block. In this EXT_FTI specification, it is assumed that: 1. All source blocks MUST have a predictable size. The blocking scheme is defined by an algorithm shared by the source and the receivers, and the information contained in the EXT_FTI. The blocking scheme is outside the scope of this document. Yet an example is to have all blocks the same size 'Source Block Length', except perhaps the last two blocks whose size is shorter when the total 'Object Length' is not a multiple of 'Source Block Length' times 'Encoding Symbol Length'. The advantage of this blocking scheme is that no block is shorter than half the 'Source Block Length'. 2. All source symbols of all source blocks are of the same size, except perhaps some of them. This size MUST be predictable and only depends on the blocking algorithm and the information contained in the EXT_FTI. For instance, the last symbol of a block can be shorter when the block size in bytes is not a multiple of the symbol size. 3. The size of a full-sized source symbol is equal to the size of an encoding symbol. 5.1.2.2 FEC Encoding ID 129 Small Block Systematic FEC (Under-Specified). The FEC Encoding ID specific format of EXT_FTI is defined as follows. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 16] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ General EXT_FTI format | Max. Data Symbols per Block | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Max. Num. of Encoding Symbols | Encoding Symbol Length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Maximum Number of Data Symbols per Block, 16 bits: Indicates the current maximum number of user data segments per FEC coding block to be used by the sender during the session. Maximum Number of Encoding Symbols, 16 bits: Maximum number of encoding symbols that can be generated for a source block. Encoding Symbol Length, 16 bits: Length of encoding symbol in bytes. 5.2 Use of FDT for delivery of FEC Object Transmission Information The receiver of file delivery session MAY support delivery of FEC Object Transmission Information using FDT. In that case the following attributes within the "File" element of the FDT structure MUST be used when applicable. If the listed attributes do not fulfill the needs of describing the FEC Object Transmission Information, additional new attributes MAY be used. * "Content-Length" is semantically equivalent with the field "Object Length" of EXT_FTI. * "FEC-OTI-FEC-Instance-ID" is semantically equivalent with the field "FEC Instance ID" of EXT_FTI. * "FEC-OTI-Source-Block-Length" is semantically equivalent with the field "Source Block Length" of EXT_FTI for FEC Encoding IDs 0, 128 and 130. * "FEC-OTI-Encoding-Symbol-Length" is semantically equivalent with the field "Encoding Symbol Length" of EXT_FTI for FEC Encoding IDs 0, 128, 129 and 130. * "FEC-OTI-Max-Number-of-Data-Symbols-per-Block" is semantically equivalent with the field "Maximum Number of Data Symbols per Block" of EXT_FTI for FEC Encoding ID 129. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 17] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 * "FEC-OTI-Max-Number-of-Encoding-Symbols" is semantically equivalent with the field "Maximum Number of Encoding Symbols" of EXT_FTI for FEC Encoding ID 129. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 18] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 6. Describing file delivery sessions To start receiving a file delivery session, the receiver needs to know transport parameters associated with the session. Interpreting these parameters and starting the reception therefore represents the entry point from which on the receiver operation falls into the scope of this specification. According to [3], the transport parameters of an ALC/LCT session that the receiver needs to know are: * The sender IP address; * The number of channels in the session; * The destination IP address and port number for each channel in the session; * The Transport Session Identifier (TSI) of the session; * An indication of whether or not the session carries packets for more than one object; Optionally, the following parameters MAY be associated with the session (Note, the list is not exhaustive): * The start time and end time of the session; * FEC Encoding ID and FEC Instance ID when the default FEC Encoding ID 0 is not used for the delivery of FDT; * Compression format if optional compression of FDT Instance Payload is used; * The FEC Object Transmission Information when this information is neither available in the EXT_FTI nor FDT as described in section 5. * Some information that tells receiver, in the first place, that the session contains files that are of interest How the receiver acquires the above-mentioned parameters is out of scope of this document. The specification, in particular, does not mandate or exclude any mechanism. The description can be conveyed to the receiver via techniques such as Session Announcement Protocol [11], email, accessing URL, manual configuration, etc. Similarly the format of this session description is out of the scope of this document. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 19] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 7. Security considerations There is a risk of forged file delivery sessions. A malicious attacker may spoof file delivery (ALC/LCT) packets in order to initiate an attack. The attacker may have several objectives he or she wishes to achieve, like Denial of Service (DoS). The following are the most obvious risks, however not exhaustive. The attacker can focus on the FDT information, sending forged packets with erroneous FDT-Payload fields. Many attacks can follow this approach. For instance a malicious attacker may alter the Content-Location field of TOI 'n', to make it point to a system file or a user configuration file. Then, TOI 'n' can carry a Trojan horse or some other type of virus. Another example is generating a bad Content-MD5 sum, leading receivers to reject the associated file that will be declared corrupted. The Content-Encoding can also be modified, which also prevents the receivers to correctly handle the associated file. These examples show that the FDT information is critical to the FLUTE delivery service. It is therefore highly RECOMMENDED that the FDT information be protected by the appropriate security measures. For instance TESLA [13] can be used for authenticating the FDT source, along with the other packets exchanged during the ALC/LCT session. In some cases a group authentication service can be sufficient. In that case, simple and efficient cryptographic transforms can then be used [12]. The FDT content may also be digitally signed, which provides both source authentication and packet integrity. This is feasible if the FDT packet rate is kept sufficiently low (generating/ verifying digital signatures are computationally demanding tasks). In that case, the number of signature verifications at a receiver should be rate limited in order to prevent DoS attacks consisting in sending a high number of forged FDT packets. Finally it is RECOMMENDED that the FLUTE delivery service does not have write access to the system files or directories, or any other critical areas. An attacker can also eavesdrop on the FLUTE session. Packets containing the FDT information are critical from that point of view since they contain information on the session content. When this is an issue it is RECOMMENDED that the FDT packets be encrypted (as well as the data packets) using a confidentiality service. The MSEC IETF Working Group defines security transforms, Group Key Management and Group Security Associations building blocks that can be used to that purpose. A difficulty is the unidirectional feature of FLUTE. Many protocols providing application-level security are based on bidirectional Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 20] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 communications. The application of these security protocols in case of strictly unidirectional links is not considered in the present document. In addition to the attacks on the FDT information, FLUTE is subject to attacks on the ALC/LCT session itself. Therefore, the security considerations of [3] and [4] also apply to FLUTE. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 21] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 8. Acknowledgements The following persons have contributed to this specification: Rod Walsh, Juha-Pekka Luoma, Esa Jalonen, Sami Peltotalo, Jani Peltotalo and Brian Adamson. The authors would like to thank all the contributors for their valuable work in reviewing and providing feedback regarding this specification. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 22] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 Normative references [1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", RFC 2026, BCP 9, October 1996. [2] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, BCP 14, March 1997. [3] Luby, M., Gemmel, J., Vicisano, L., Rizzo, L. and J. Crowcroft, "Asynchronous Layered Coding (ALC) Protocol Instantiation", RFC 3450, December 2002. [4] Luby, M., Gemmel, J., Vicisano, L., Rizzo, L. and J. Crowcroft, "Layered Coding Transport (LCT) Building Block", RFC 3451, December 2002. [5] Luby, M., Gemmel, J., Vicisano, L., Rizzo, L., Crowcroft, J. and M. Handley, "Forward Error Correction (FEC) Building Block", RFC 3452, December 2002. [6] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P. and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999. [7] Luby, M. and L. Vicisano, "Compact Forward Error Correction (FEC) Schemes", draft-ietf-rmt-bb-fec-supp-compact-01 (work in progress), May 2003. [8] Thompson, H., Beech, D., Maloney, M. and N. Mendelsohn, "XML Schema Part 1: Structures", W3C Recommendation, May 2001. [9] Biron, P. and A. Malhotra, "XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes", W3C Recommendation, May 2001. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 23] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 Informative references [10] Deutsch, P. and J-L. Gailly, "ZLIB Compressed Data Format Specification version 3.3", RFC 1950, May 1996. [11] Handley, M., Perkins, C. and E. Whelan, "Session Announcement Protocol", RFC 2974, October 2000. [12] Hardjono, T. and B. Weis, "The Multicast Security Architecture", draft-ietf-msec-arch-01 (work in progress), May 2003. [13] Perrig, A., Canetti, R., Song, D., Tygar, D. and B. Briscoe, "TESLA: Multicast Source Authentication Transform Introduction", draft-ietf-msec-tesla-intro-01 (work in progress), October 2002. Authors' Addresses Toni Paila Nokia Itamerenkatu 11-13 Helsinki FIN-00180 Finland EMail: toni.paila@nokia.com Michael Luby Digital Fountain 39141 Civic Center Dr. Suite 300 Fremont, CA 94538 USA EMail: luby@digitalfountain.com Rami Lehtonen TeliaSonera Hatanpaan valtatie 18 Tampere FIN-33100 Finland EMail: rami.lehtonen@teliasonera.com Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 24] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 Vincent Roca INRIA Rhone-Alpes 655, av. de l'Europe Montbonnot St Ismier cedex 38334 France EMail: vincent.roca@inrialpes.fr Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 25] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 Appendix A. Receiver operation (informative) This chapter gives an example how the receiver of the file delivery session may operate. Instead of a detailed state-by-state specification the following should be interpreted as a rough sequence of an envisioned file delivery receiver. 1. The receiver obtains the description of the file delivery session identified by the pair: (source IP address, Transport Session Identifier). The receiver also obtains the destination IP addresses and respective ports associated with the file delivery session. 2. The receiver joins the channels in order to receive packets associated with the file delivery session. The receiver may schedule this join operation utilizing the timing information contained in a possible description of the file delivery session. 3. The receiver receives ALC/LCT packets associated with the file delivery session. The receiver checks that the packets match the declared Transport Session Identifier. If not, packets are silently discarded. 4. While receiving, the receiver demultiplexes packets based on their TOI and stores the relevant packet information in an appropriate area for recovery of the corresponding file. Multiple files can be reconstructed concurrently. 5. Receiver recovers an object. An object can be recovered when an appropriate set of packets containing encoding symbols for the object have been received and the object can be recovered. An appropriate set of packets is dependent on the properties of the FEC Encoding ID and FEC Instance ID, and on other information contained in the FEC Object Transmission Information. 6. If the recovered object was an FDT instance with FDT Instance ID 'N', the receiver parses the payload of the instance 'N' of FDT and updates its FDT database accordingly. The receiver identifies FDT instances within a file delivery session by the EXT_FDT header extension. Any object that is delivered using EXT_FDT header extension is an FDT instance, uniquely identified by the FDT Instance ID. Note that TOI '0' is exclusively reserved for FDT delivery. 7. If the object recovered is not an FDT Instance but a file, the receiver looks up its FDT database to get the properties described in the database, and assigns file with the given properties. The receiver also checks that received content length matches with the Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 26] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 description in the database. Optionally, if MD5 checksum has been used, the receiver checks that calculated MD5 matches with the description in the FDT database. 8. The actions the receiver takes with imperfectly received files (missing data, mismatching digestive, etc.) is outside the scope of this specification. When a file is recovered before the associated file description entry is available, a possible behavior is to wait until an FDT Instance is received that includes the missing properties. 9. If the file delivery session end time has not been reached go back to 3. Otherwise end. Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 27] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 Appendix B. Example of FDT Instance Payload (informative) Paila, et al. Expires January 30, 2004 [Page 28] Internet-Draft FLUTE August 2003 Intellectual Property Statement The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. 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