RFC 7718

Registries for the One-Way Active Measurement Protocol (OWAMP)

📅 published December 2015, from ietf

RFC 7718: Registries for the One-Way Active Measurement Protocol (OWAMP) 🦋

Part 1 of 2: the rest of the spec (Section 4 onward) comes next! 💖

Okay bestie, RFC 7718 is the registries doc for OWAMP, the One-Way Active Measurement Protocol 🌸. It was written by A. Morton from AT&T Labs, and it came out in December 2015. It's a Standards Track document, which means it's an actual Internet standard, not just a suggestion ✨. Its ISSN is 2070-1721. The header only lists one update: it updates RFC 4656, the original OWAMP spec 👑. It doesn't list anything it obsoletes.

Abstract

This memo describes the registries for OWAMP, the One-Way Active Measurement Protocol 🧚. The registries are where new Mode bit positions and OWAMP Command numbers get assigned. With this memo, IANA set up two registries for new features: the OWAMP-Modes registry and the OWAMP Control Command Number registry 🎀. This memo updates RFC 4656.

Status of This Memo

This is an Internet Standards Track document ✨.

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community, and it went through public review and got approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) 🫶. If you want more on Internet Standards, check out Section 2 of RFC 5741 💅. You can find the current status, any errata, and how to send feedback at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7718 🔥.

Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved 💜.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) as they stand on the date this document was published. Please read these carefully, because they spell out your rights and restrictions for this document 🙈. Code Components pulled out of this document must include the Simplified BSD License text described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions, and they come with no warranty, as described in the Simplified BSD License ⭐.

Table of Contents

1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
  1.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
2.  Purpose and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
3.  IANA Considerations for OWAMP-Control Registries  . . . . . .   3
  3.1.  Control Command Number Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
    3.1.1.  Registry Specification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
    3.1.2.  Registry Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
    3.1.3.  Experimental Numbers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
    3.1.4.  OWAMP-Control Command Numbers Initial Contents  . . .   3
  3.2.  OWAMP-Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
    3.2.1.  Registry Specification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
    3.2.2.  Registry Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
    3.2.3.  Experimental Numbers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
    3.2.4.  OWAMP-Modes Initial Contents  . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
5.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
  5.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
  5.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

1. Introduction ✨

OWAMP [RFC4656] was built to support measurements of the metrics specified by the IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) working group in the IETF 🌈. The Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP) [RFC5357] is an extension of OWAMP. The TWAMP spec got lots of review as it got close to done, and that review produced several recommendations for new features in TWAMP 💅. Because of that, a registry of new features was set up for TWAMP. OWAMP didn't get any new features proposed until recently [RFC7717], so it had no registry of its own 🙈.

This memo sets up the registries OWAMP needs and updates [RFC4656] 🎀.

1.1. Requirements Language

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 [RFC2119] 📚.

2. Purpose and Scope 🦋

The purpose and scope of this memo is to describe, and to request the setup of, registries for future OWAMP [RFC4656] extensions 💖. IANA already runs the "Two-way Active Measurement Protocol (TWAMP) Parameters", and this request follows a similar form (with one exception, which is identified below) 🧚.

This memo also gives the initial contents for the OWAMP registries 🍓.

3. IANA Considerations for OWAMP-Control Registries 🌸

The OWAMP-Control protocol coordinates the measurement capability 🫶. All OWAMP-Control messages follow the specifications defined in Section 3 of [RFC4656].

3.1. Control Command Number Registry

IANA has created an OWAMP-Control Command Number registry ✨.

OWAMP-Control Commands follow the specifications defined in Section 3.4 of [RFC4656].

3.1.1. Registry Specification

OWAMP-Control Command Numbers are specified in the first octet of OWAMP-Control-Client command messages, consistent with Section 3 of [RFC4656]. There are a maximum of 256 command numbers 🔢.

3.1.2. Registry Management

The "OWAMP-Control Command Numbers" registry can only hold 256 values, and OWAMP is an IETF protocol. So these registries MUST be updated only by "IETF Review", as specified in [RFC5226] (an RFC that documents registry use and is approved by the IESG) 👑.

3.1.3. Experimental Numbers

One experimental value is currently assigned in the Command Numbers Registry, as shown in the initial contents below 🧪.

3.1.4. OWAMP-Control Command Numbers Initial Contents

OWAMP-Control Commands follow the procedure defined in Section 3.5 of [RFC4656] and in the rest of Section 3 of that document 💅.

The complete set of OWAMP-Control Command Numbers is as follows (including two reserved values) 🎀:

   OWAMP-Control Command Numbers

   Value   Description             Semantics     Reference
                                   Definition
   ==========================================================
    0      Reserved                Section 3.1.4 RFC 7718
    1      Request-Session         Section 3.5   RFC 4656
    2      Start-Sessions          Section 3.7   RFC 4656
    3      Stop-Sessions           Section 3.8   RFC 4656
    4      Fetch-Sessions          Section 3.9   RFC 4656
    5-253  Unassigned
    254    Experimentation         Section 3.1.4 RFC 7718
    255    Reserved                Section 3.1.4 RFC 7718

3.2. OWAMP-Modes

IANA has created an OWAMP-Modes registry 🦋.

3.2.1. Registry Specification

OWAMP-Modes are specified in OWAMP Server Greeting messages and Set-up Response messages, consistent with Section 3.1 of [RFC4656]. Modes are currently indicated by setting single bits in the 32-bit Modes field. More complex encoding may be used in the future 🔮.

3.2.2. Registry Management

The "OWAMP-Modes" are based on only 32 bit positions, with each position conveying a unique feature. OWAMP is also an IETF protocol. So these registries MUST be updated only by "IETF Review", as specified in [RFC5226] (an RFC that documents registry use and is approved by the IESG). IANA SHOULD allocate monotonically increasing bit positions when requested 🌈.

3.2.3. Experimental Numbers

No experimental bit positions are currently assigned in the Modes registry, as shown in the initial contents below 🙈.

3.2.4. OWAMP-Modes Initial Contents

OWAMP-Control connection establishment follows the procedure defined in Section 3.1 of [RFC4656] 🫶.

In the OWAMP-Modes registry, assignments are straightforward based on bit positions, and there are no references to values. This is different from the comparable TWAMP registry, which is a topic for improvement that got reconciled in [RFC7717] ✨.

An extension of the OWAMP-Modes is proposed in [RFC7717]. With this extension, the complete set of OWAMP Mode bit positions is as follows (including one reserved bit position) 💖:

   OWAMP-Modes

   Bit                            Semantics
   Pos.   Description             Definition     Reference
   =======================================================
   0      Unauthenticated         Section 3.1    RFC 4656
   1      Authenticated           Section 3.1    RFC 4656
   2      Encrypted               Section 3.1    RFC 4656
   3      Reserved                Section 3.2.4  RFC 7718
   ------------------------------------------------------
   4      IKEv2-derived Shared    Section 3.2.4  RFC 7718
          Secret Key               of RFC 7718,
                                  Section 5 of   RFC 7717
                                   of RFC 7717
   ------------------------------------------------------
   5-31   Unassigned

In the original OWAMP Modes field, setting bit position 0, 1, or 2 indicated the security mode of the Control protocol. The Test protocol inherited the same mode (see Section 4 of [RFC4656]) 🔐.

The value of the Modes field sent by the Server in the Server-Greeting message is the bit-wise OR of the modes (bit positions) that it is willing to support during this session. So the five least significant bits of the 32-bit Modes field are used. When no other features are activated, the 27 most significant bits MUST be zero. A Control-Client conforming to [RFC4656] MAY ignore the values in the 29 most significant bits of the Modes field. Or it MAY support features that are communicated in other bit positions, such as the IKEv2-derived Shared Secret Key extension [RFC7717] 🧠.

OWAMP and TWAMP registries for Modes may grow to contain different features and functions. That's because one-way and two-way measurement setups are inherently different, and so are the metrics they measure. No attempt will be made to coordinate them unnecessarily, except for the Reserved bit position 3 above. That bit is available for assignment if a mixed security mode similar to [RFC5618] is defined for OWAMP. It would allow alignment with the comparable TWAMP feature 🎀.

5.1. Normative References

okay so these are the must-read refs, bestie 📚✨ you can't really get the spec without them 💅

5.2. Informative References

these ones are the extra reading 🦋 not required to get the basics, but SO worth the detour 🌸

Acknowledgements ✨

the author gave shoutouts to the people who helped make this doc slay 🫶 so iconic of them to credit everyone 💖

The author would like to thank Kostas Pentikousis, Nalini Elkins, Mike Ackermann, and Greg Mirsky for insightful reviews and comments. We thought Spencer Dawkins caught the last of the small errors in his AD review, but Nevil Brownlee found a few more during OPS-DIR review. Roni Even found our use of "IETF Consensus" was out of date with [RFC5226]. Michelle Cotton helped to clarify the IANA considerations.

Author's Address 🎀

here's where you can find the author 💌

Al Morton
AT&T Labs
200 Laurel Avenue South
Middletown,, NJ  07748
United States

Phone: +1 732 420 1571
Fax:   +1 732 368 1192
Email: acmorton@att.com
URI:   http://home.comcast.net/~acmacm/
📦 where this page comes from